You Have ALL The Time You Need (and then some)

We’d just begun our coaching call. Michael was explaining why he had not kept his word about creating monthly financial statements.  Again.

 In a voice tinged with resignation, he said there wasn’t enough time. He rolled out all the things that had gotten in his way in the past two weeks.  He waited for me to change the subject.

I didn’t change the subject.  As his coach, I knew that this was The Subject.  And this was a major challenge to Michael getting what he truly wanted for his business and himself.  Michael knew it.  I knew it.  And as his coach, I wouldn’t be helping him if I let him off the hook.

But I never seem to have enough time!

“Your problem isn’t lack of time, Michael,” I said.  “You had time enough to make client calls. You were able to take an extra two hours on your lunch break to read up on SEO optimization and tweak your blog. You had time for a lot of things, but you consistently put off this one thing that you’d committed to, agreed needed to be done, and wasn’t all that difficult.  So what’s really going on?”

Michael got defensive, saying he’d been prioritizing. Then he caught himself, and said:  “I know this is important, but I just feel so uncomfortable dealing with finance.”  This was big for Michael to admit and I was relieved to hear him own it. “Not having time” was a red herring and we both knew it.

I assured him that he wasn’t alone when it came to procrastination, and we considered a number of places throughout his management and leadership functions where this habit was showing up. We reviewed several other things he wanted that he wasn’t getting by allowing this habit to drive him. We had to agree that it was a problem before we could agree to work on it.

Tell Me Why?