Was it you?

Last time (Writing is for thinking) I told you that I throw a lot of my journaling away. Once I’ve done the writing of process writing I am focused on the result, and I don’t need a lot of the deliberations that led up to it; I’ve moved on to now-get-it-done mode.

However there are other kinds of journaling I do keep, and one kind is idea capture. The ideas we come up with can turn out to work differently in various contexts, and I like to read over my random ideas over and over again, for I never know when I will be reading them from a fresh perspective.

That just happened to me again this past Tuesday afternoon.

I write my ideas down in a small notebook that I am always carrying with me. Reason being that I’ve discovered my best re-read time comes when I am standing in line somewhere, I’m waiting to catch a flight, or I’m early for an appointment.

The ideas in my notebook are not always mine. They might come from someone else, and often do. For instance, I love to flip to a clean page, hand my notebook to someone in one of my workshops who has just had an aha! moment, and ask them to write their idea down for me before they lose the thought. When I read it later, their handwriting serves as a much different trigger.

So Tuesday, I come to a page where a leader I’m coaching had written,

“Who says you can’t do that?
Did someone really say that,
or was it a voice in your own head?

I talk to myself too much.
I really should learn to shut up more.”

Wow. I started wondering just how much I end up being my own censor, talking myself out of doing things, and out of acting on other ideas. How much starts out clearly black and white in their clarity and brilliance, until my inner critic starts coloring over them with smoky grey?

So yesterday I conducted a little experiment. It was a day that I had three different Skype calls scheduled, and I knew they would be rich ones: One was with an executive coaching customer, another was with a friend who’d be filling me in on her new business venture, and the third was a conference call with a board of directors I sit on. After each call I sat for about 20 minutes of quiet time to think back to any time I “got grey” in my own self talk, or any time I spoke offering an opinion or reason of some kind:

• Was my reason truly sound and valid, or could it possibly been an excuse or justification in disguise?
• Was there any way I was actually fooling myself?
• Did I ever state as fact something I was actually guessing or supposing about?

What a fabulous exercise. I must admit, I did catch myself on a couple of things. I pride myself on being positive, and I work on it constantly, but I can begin to believe my own hype! Which is okay when it is encouragement, but not when “can’t” and “yeah, but” starts to creep into my language! Not when a once-valid reason has now turned into a no-longer reasonable excuse.

Try it.

1. Rethink a conversation which has ended but is still fresh in mind for you. Did you make any statement which could very well be wrong? Who says you can’t change your mind? Who says you can’t try something different? Who says you can’t admit to something being right before, but wrong now? You might not need to apologize, but should you change your m.o.?
2. Ask yourself honestly about something you’ve thrown a “yeah, but” at in your own head. Who really says you can’t do that?

A few posts back I wrote “Who gives you your second opinion?” and one of the questions there was “When do you listen, and when do you go your own way?” Might be something to think about again in this context.

Let’s talk story.

Any thoughts to share? No one says you can’t! Comment here, or via the tweet-conversation we have on Twitter @sayalakai.

Tags: coaching, ideas, questions, thinking, writing

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 1:00 am and is filed under Process and Productivity, Workplace Communication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.