academic coach

One Small Step

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“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” 
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Each day this week, I vow to take one small step towards my goal.

Why am I making this promise?  Because I want to give myself the best possible chance to make positive changes in my life.

Accomplishing goals happens one action at a time. 

Too often we try to change everything at once.  We wait for large blocks of time to work on important projects, rather than taking one small step forward each day. When we want to change a habit, we set out to modify every aspect of our behavior right away.

Usually, attempts at complete overhaul fail.  Instead, we get discouraged and quit before projects are complete and goals are met.  We accuse ourselves of being lazy and undisciplined.  Sometimes we end up worse than before. 

For example:

· We devote an entire day to working on a journal article (and end up web-surfing and email-checking for hours.)
· We take a five-mile run on Saturday morning (and then can’t walk on Sunday.) 
· We photocopy massive stacks of journal articles (that end up in dusty piles on the floor of our messy office.)
· We eliminate all carbs in our diet and cut our calorie intake in half (until 11pm when we suck down a pint of Hagen Das.)

Instead of trying to change everything at once, it is more effective to make small, consistent shifts in our behaviors.

The Japanese call this strategy “kaizen”, or incremental and continuous improvement. 

Here are some examples of a Kaizen approach to different areas of your life:

· Scholarship: Read an article from the latest issue of the top journal in your field.

· Nutrition: Instead of unhealthy snacks, munch fresh veggies such as baby carrots, red peppers, green beans and sugar snap peas.

· Friendship: Call a close friend you haven’t spoken to in the past six months.

· Organization: Take five minutes to plan tomorrow: when, where and upon what will you work?

· Fitness: Avoid elevators and bound up stairs instead.

· Networking: Send a short, grateful email to a colleague explaining why and how her most recent article has influenced you thinking.

As I said before, I’m taking one small step each day this week.  Every morning I will write for at least 20 minutes.

Would you like to join me in practicing kaizen this week? Right now, instead of making grand plans, think of the smallest, easiest step you can take towards your goal. Instead of a sea change, add a drop to the bucket.

Have you thought of an area where you’d like to get started? Are you willing to commit yourself to taking action?

What will your small step be?  I’d like to hear about your progress.

Want some more tips for taking small steps?  How about a Tolerable Ten

Fresh Start

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“The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those that fail.” – Napoleon Hill, author

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It’s Labor Day and I’m thinking about labor done, undone, and to be done. There’s a lot of it, isn’t there?

I’ve heard a theme emerge among my coaching clients in the past few weeks: a general sense of discouragement that they got less done this summer than they had anticipated.

I feel great empathy – I too planned to accomplish several projects that I’ve yet to begin.

What is it about the summer that results in unmet expectations?

For many of us, the summer is a time when we are not teaching and there are fewer professional commitments.  In May, it seems like we will have a long stretch of open time ahead during which we can finally get the space to write, write, write.  But somehow those three months pass all too quickly. 

How does this happen?

-  First, there were probably more obligations than we had anticipated. 

-  Second, when we anticipated three whole months of uninterrupted diligence, we forgot to account for our much-needed vacation time.

-  Third, we may not have been as focused and efficient as we wished. At least occasionally, we dawdled, got distracted, and wasted time. And we find ourselves at the end of the summer regretting that procrastination.

Most of my clients and I have been berating ourselves this week for what we considered our lackluster efforts over the summer.

What is it? I wondered about this pattern of discouragement. And what I’ve decided is that we are much too harsh in our self-recriminations and far too unrealistic in our goal-setting.

Perhaps our problem derives from an over-ambitious wish to catch-up on work at the expense of legitimate longings to relax and recuperate. At a deep level, our childhood selves still demand that summertime be vacation time.  School’s out and we understandably want to play rather than work. I believe that June, July and August are especially difficult months for people in the Northern Hemisphere to increase their diligence and repair poor work habits.

Fortunately, the beginning of the new semester brings new hope.  This is the time in which our childhood psyche feels at its most enthusiastic about school.  It is the time of new notebooks, pencils, clothes and backpacks. It should also be the time to plan a daily schedule that will permit time for our own scholarly work as well as teaching and other external responsibilities.

As we watch the fall leaves turn, it is a good time to turn over a new leaf. 

What will you do differently this semester?

What new habits will you cultivate to move your work forward?

How will you make a fresh start this fall?

We can do it!

Mary