How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!
My son recently reminded me that sometimes when we look at a big task, it can seem overwhelming until you break it down into manageable chunks. We were on a walk and he was talking about the view of Pikes Peak from Colorado Springs, Colorado where we live, and using climbing (or driving to) the mountaintop as a metaphor. “If you just look at it, it seems like it gets farther and farther away, but if you think about going there in small chunks, it’s not so far,” he said.
That is certainly true when it comes to big projects like dissertations and books. It is also true of the more difficult yoga postures that require years of glacial progress in lieu of a simple “all-in” kind of effort. It isn’t like diving into a swimming pool! You have to take it slowly or the consequences are painful in the most literal sense of the word.
I will share a process that works pretty well for me.
When writing a book or a dissertation it is good to have a structure, an outline that you can sort of hang content on as you go along. You write a chunk of text that you are happy with, when the spirit moves you, and then go back to the big project and copy the text into the right section of the outline. Do this enough times, and you are well on your way to being done! Then comes editing to tighten up the structure and find some clarity— simply refining all of your great content!
It is easy to create several pages of inspired content when the muse is in full effect, but I think that if I sat down on a given day and tried to write a whole book, things would end badly!
This idea is certainly reinforced by some of the more challenging stretches we do in yoga. I often tell my students on the mat to work on making the kind of progress that comes one centimeter at a time. If you try to do it all at once, injuries are pretty much guaranteed. It is every instructor’s (and student’s) worst nightmare to see someone pushing joints and muscles too far too fast.
If my web cam were on just now, you would have seen a squeamish wince. OUCH!!!
This pose, a mermaid variation, is no exception. I am working on squaring my hips in this posture, deepening the stretch with each exhalation, and so on… There are more advanced variations that are in my “one day” bucket as well, but I work on them very, very carefully and SLOWLY. The backbend that will one day bring the top of my head back to my foot and open up my chest— something I am privileged to witness in some of my friends’ practices— it is not mine today. It’s a big goal that must be tackled in very small, incremental chunks lest I do permanent damage to my back by trying to force it all at once.
These things take time, patience, and above all, the acceptance of gradual progress born of long-term effort— not so different from a major work project!
I am reminded of the experience of grading papers. I teach as an adjunct professor and I relish in student papers born of careful, thoughtful, incremental progress made over time. Sadly, I am also privy to many “night before it was due” disasters, complete with rambling, disorganized space filling content and bad grammar to boot. Again, I wince and say, “OUCH!”
Academics, you feel my pain! Right???
Those slow, deliberate efforts not only bring a smile to the professor’s face, they also reflect a much deeper understanding and a more sophisticated learning process than the midnight panic paper whose deepest insights are the product of Red Bull and fluorescent light.
So how can we be more deliberate in marketing and sales efforts for our businesses, in college application processes, job searches, and the like?
I am glad you asked!
For me the big mountain to climb has been the development of a sales funnel and the necessary expertise to effectively market my consulting services.
At first I truly believed that “if you build a better mousetrap the mice will come,” and that word of mouth advertising would suffice. I was wrong! It isn’t enough to build the mousetrap. You must also be able to identify those who have mouse problems (your ideal client), explain how the trap works in terms that the rodent-infested can identify with (no techno-babble).
Not only that, you must be gracious when people declare their complete lack of rodents and can not imagine themselves buying a mousetrap such as yours… even as you watch a little furry critter nibbling on a lapel of your “mouse-free” friend’s suit! (Of course, in such cases, you should ALWAYS question whether the mouse was really there or just the product of your own perspective!)
It ain’t easy!
I struggle with this, myself. I have read and written tons, developed my skills in myriad ways. I have created free content and content for fee, networked until I am blue in the face, worked on getting inside the heads of my clients to figure out how best to be of service, purchased ads, refined my explanations ad nauseum... You get the point.
Each approach seemed to generate some new traction— a client here, a workshop or speaking opportunity there… Yet the whole thing was sort of a shotgun approach in many ways at the start— something I am embarrassed to admit!
Mea culpa!!!
This year I began thinking of my marketing efforts more systematically— coming up with an overall plan. I invested (Wince-OUCH-write the check) in training for public relations, sales, and customer relations among other things. Many, many lessons have come from this, but the best part is that I am no longer wandering around the herd taking little bites out of different elephants, making no real progress towards getting my message out.
Getting to know people well enough to even begin to offer a service, a product, or just a social connection that is mutually beneficial takes time! It is a slow, delicate process that can easily be derailed if you jump the gun. If your aim is truly to be of service, as it should be, then you absolutely must be patient with the people you have the good fortune to meet!
That said, as my friend Cathy Royal once told me, “Closed mouths do not get fed.” You do have to ask for the sale when the time is right, and that is where many of us fall short. I know that I have missed many opportunities simply because I didn’t seize the moment and ask for the business. Timing seems to be extremely important in that process.
Hmmm… PROCESS! What a lovely word that is!
I looked it up in an online dictionary and every definition contained the words “series of steps.” For big jobs and necessary tasks for the survival of your business— especially those things you must do many, many times— mastering a series of steps is critical. (So is adapting the process as conditions change!)
So how about you?
What big jobs are you taking on? What do those processes look like?
Have you broken them down into reasonable chunks? Do you celebrate the milestones along the way?
Copyright Gly Solutions 2015
