I was cooking fried rice for dinner last night and having a heck of a time seeing what I was doing.
After struggling for a few minutes and getting frustrated with my pan, the spatula I was using, and finally the eggs and ham, I realized I hadn’t noticed the sun had moved and there wasn’t sunlight streaming in my window anymore so my kitchen was dark.
Flipped on a light switch and oh what a difference!
Turns out, the ham, eggs, spatula and pan weren’t conspiring against me. I just couldn’t see what I was cooking clearly.
Business is sometimes like that. We’re so busy working, trying to get things done, and focus on what’s right in front of us that we don’t notice we need to flip the light switch so we can see clearly.
Light switches…
- Getting help from someone else (coach, friend, mastermind) to put things in perspective or figure out our best next step
- That great feeling when the light bulb goes off in your head with the solution or idea you’ve been waiting for
- Finding the answer to the question you had that was stopping you from moving forward
- Realizing you needed to take a simple action to change the way things appeared
So when’s the last time you stopped and turned on one of the those light switches? What was it for you?
Great metaphor, Michele!
Thanks Patricia!
thx for your emails you send it to me
I can relate. Sometimes I’m so busy doing busy work I’m not getting the main objectives accomplished. Another thing is wasting time trying to figure out how to do something I don’t know how to do. I do love the ah-ha moments I have just about every week during the coaching call with my business coach.
I do the same thing, Rhonda. I really need to make a list of things I shouldn’t do — and stick to it! :)
Thanks, Michelle – you made me laugh first thing in the morning!
Now, my situation IS a little particular. You see, I know darn well how valuable and eye-opening an opinion may be, BUT — oh, dear! — web business and blogging in Greece is so new, I find virtually nobody to talk to about such stuff. It’s like being an astronaut among 19th century Victorians or something!
So, I feel compelled to follow a variety of blogs and receive several newsletters on different aspects of the trade, to educate myself and keep up with what’s going on. This tends to be a little time-consuming, but with time I sort out the ones that I really like and find informative and helpful (yes, you’re a champion!) and I dump the rest.
Oh, and I’m not afraid to ask questions online — no matter how dump they may seem.
Sometimes, it’s just plain intuition — you know, when all the necessary info has piled up and is being, as if subconsciously, processed in your brain, and then, pop! here comes the obvious answer. I just love these ones!!!
Being open is very important: many times, the best ideas come from mixing practices from different disciplines, e.g. a principle that applies to a craft (or to cooking…) may well be the ingredient missing in our web business. Life is a whole and we should embrace it as such.
Very true, Helenee. Sometimes it’s just out of the blue like that, the solution hits us. :)
Asking questions is the best way to learn what we want to learn next. Good strategy.
It can be time-consuming to sort out what to learn, when to learn it, and who to learn it from. I used to get totally overwhelmed by it until I picked three or four people to narrow it down to and focus on that. Who I’m learning from changes depending on where I’m at in my business, but the approach is helping me a lot.
Well, after that post where you spoke about coaching, I contacted Jill and we’re now coaching too! I’m so enjoying working with her (and I’ve never had a coach pray for me before – that is SO special) and am getting some lights turned on for me too.
Just wanted to come back and tell you as we sometimes don’t know if what we put out there is doing anything for anyone….
:)
Awesome!! I’m so happy to hear that, Marcia. Jill is wonderful.
Hi Michelle,
Very enlightening really. I am sure most people would agree to you. We are so busy in today’s fast forward life that many times we ignore things that we should not. Another aspect that i want to highlight is that we should always try to enjoy whatever we are doing. It is very necessary to have small breaks in your work to rejuvenate yourself.
Breaks are important, I agree. Sometimes during a break away from what I’m stuck on is when the answer comes.
I’ll never forget the day, a couple years ago, when the lights went on for me …
It suddenly dawned on me that I needed to stop babysitting my own blog and start reading other blogs and posting comments.
Geez.
No wonder no one was reading my blog back then! I wasn’t reading anyone else’s! :)
Really good post!
Melanie