I was facilitating an annual planning session for a client and one of the comments from the team was… he gets “wrapped around the axle” so easy… which I thought was pretty funny at first but the more I think about it the more I realize this can happen to all of us.
Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like you were stuck in the mud and the more you dwelled on it the worse it got? Me too and so have many of my clients.
The solution is to stop, take a breath, step back and take a strategic look at the situation. One thing that works in our coaching practice is to ask the question… “What are we ultimately trying to accomplish?” Or, “what is the end result we need to see?” Once you paint a picture for yourself or your team of what winning looks like then take a few minutes and draw your path from where you are now to what the end result is you are trying to accomplish. Kind of like the navigation system on your car, determine the most direct path from point A to point B with stops (milestones) along the way.
Next time you feel like you are getting “wrapped around the axle”, stop, take a breath, go for that 15 minute walk you should be doing every 90 minutes then chart your path forward and then execute that plan. You’re not alone, we all have these moments.