You can download it here:
http://www.selfworks.net/choicequadrant.pdf

NB. To make this even more effective, give a score out of 10 (with 10 being “very important to me”, and 0 “not at all important to me”) to each of the elements you place into each quadrant.

Otherwise, just allow yourself to take whatever you need from the data this helps you to gather.

This tool is very simple, but please don’t let that fool you: it really does work if you need to clarify your thinking about a choice. What you do with the results is up to you!

Hope this helps!

Clare

In which case, this very simple little technique should assist you in making the process quicker and easier. It goes like this:

1. Take a large sheet of paper (or a nice, new document if you’re doing this on a computer).

At the top, write “My Needs Right Now”.

Under that, list ever single thing you feel you need from life, right now. Eg:

“1. Time to myself every day.
2. More chances to meet with friends
3. X hours per week to pursue cretive interests”

etc.

When you think you’ve finished, wait a few minutes, or even put the list away for a day, before you complete it, to check that other needs are not “lurking” somewhere in your mind.

Once the list is complete, go back to your decision making process, and whatever else that process includes, make sure you spend a little time checking out how well each option tallies (or otherwise) with your list of your own needs.

This little technique is not meant to make the decision for you, nor to ignore the needs of others, which may have a vital role to play as well. Its simple function is to make sure that in decision-making, your own needs are met before anything else that you “ought to” should” or even “want” to do.

Hope this helps

More soon

Clare

So far, I’ve talked about isolating precisely what it is that makes you hate your job at the moment. Which all sounds pretty negative, I admit it, from a coaching point of view.

However, once you’ve isolated the issue, the trick (rather than dwelling exclusively upon it, and thereby enlarging it in/with your mind) is to set your mind to the condition with which you’d like to replace it.

“Oh, that’s fit and fine for you to say!” I hear you cry. “You don’t have to sit next to my bossy co-worker all day”.

True, but nonetheless, please humour (humor) me, and keep concentrating exclusively on what you want. (This isn’t just a positive mental practice, it’ll also help you to feel as good as possible, and allow as many different solutions as possible to make their way into your brain.

Allow all those solutions into your brain, or better yet, onto a piece of paper. Then ask yourself:

“What is the simplest thing I can do to get to the state of affairs I actually want?” (There’s nothing like job stress for making people convince themselves htat, say, they’ve always dreamed of chicken-farming in Ecuador, when really, as in the example above, something like a simple desk (or mindset!) change, might be all that’s needed).

The simplest answer though, might not indicate your very best decision. There are two more qiuestions, coming in the next post, which should help with plumping for a decision that really feels right.

Hope this helps, and more soon, as promised.

Clare

Besides, there’s something to say that’s been brewing up for ages.

It started with an advert in our area for a cable company (bear with me, this gets to relate to personal development shortly). The company’s strapline seems to be, “If you can, you should”.

And on the surface, it’s a reasonable, and some would say, motivational, statement.

But having been faced with several people, in the last few weeks, who’ve either been urging me or themselves to do something, “because they can”, I’ve been revisiting the whole idea of “can” and “should” in tandem.

Why do these words pack a punch?

I’m still not sure about this. My best guess is that, rather like an elderly relative who says,
“In our day, we never had all your opportunities. You go and make the most of them!”

the motivation is a powerful combination of “towards” factors (the alluring “pull” of new possibilities) and the away from “push” that comes from fear of missing out, and/ or disappointing yourself or others.

So potentially, the idea that, “if you can you should” could cause a person to take an awful lot of action, right across the board, on a fairly powerful and unconscious level.

But…

But the phrase has the potential to make things harder rather than easier.

Let’s face it, there’s a huge number of things that we, as fortunate 21st century citizens, can do.

We can chuck everything in and go backpacking for a year. We can spend 18 hours a day building a business. We can form new freindships all over the globe via the internet. Etc, etc.

But just because we can do something, doesn’t mean, necessarily that we should. No-one says thta a given choice would necessarily be the best one for each and every one of us.

Internal stress

Which leads to a pretty stressful internal situation for many of us, which far from offering us more freedom and choice, actually goes like this inside your mind:

“Oh crumbs, which choice should I make? So many choices…Must take advantage of at least some of them-after all I’m so lucky to have them…But which choice should I make?”

And so the cycle carries on. And more often than not, it leads to people doing less than they might have done in an era with more “limited choice”.

One idea

What then, is the alternative? One idea that seems to be working for me, and several people that I know, is this.

1. Think about all the choices which really make you feel enthusiastic.

2. Filter out any that don’t give you that same buzz.

3. Of the remaining choices, pick the one(s) that seem both fun and practical.

4. Start taking action, being ready to make further changes if necessary.

In effect, even if you “can” do something, drop the “should”.

Hope this helps.

More soon.

Clare