TRANSCRIPT:
The tip I have for you today was around decision making. Because when we go through big changes, especially if you feel like you’re in those two middle stages of ending and passage, it can start to feel like there’s a lot of decisions that we need to be making right now I’m focusing on right now, especially as leaders. I want to today, leave this session with this exercise.
This is not a complicated exercise. It’s an exercise around prioritization. But I’m going to reframe it a little bit. It’s called the decision free zone. That’s a little misleading. We’re not saying that we’re not making any decisions. But what we are doing is giving ourselves the freedom to not make all of the decisions right now.
1. Brain dump
So what I want you to do, if you’re feeling that you’re a bit overwhelmed or you’re feeling like there’s a lot of decisions that you need to make and you’re not sure which one to start with, get out a piece of paper. Do a brain dump. Get it all out of the brain, all the decisions, all the concerns, all the worries, everything that you feel that you need to take action on today, or maybe even yesterday.
2. Identify essential decisions
Then, I want you to take that and I want you to identify three to five things that are essential, and they need immediate attention. You only get three to five, because not everything can be essential and need attention right now.
3. Prioritize remaining decisions
Then we look at that list that’s left and we identify what can we deal with soon. And those are items that are important to do soon, that they don’t have the same urgency as now.
And lastly, then, we have items that we can deal with later. This is not to say that these items are not important or that we’re procrastinating. This is to say these are items that I can postpone till later because I may need more time. I may need to get organized. I may need to get more information.
I have done this exercise with countless clients and I especially do it when we’re in Ending. And if I come alongside somebody that’s recently lost a spouse, and they feel like there are all these decisions they have to make, and everybody’s coming with good intentions of, “Have you thought about this, what are you going to do with this?” And we go through this exercise, I physically see them relax. It’s amazing how freeing this exercise can be because we get so wrapped up into needing to do everything right now. So I want you to take some time with that.
We are honored to be here and be able to share with you that we have learned, as we’ve studied leadership, and we’ve studied transitions and emotional intelligence. Again, we’d love to hear from you how this resonated with you how we can better help you Master What’s Next.