A coaching provocation: Are you playing the long or the short game?
One of the reasons transformative change is so hard is that we struggle to break out of the way we are living and working right now.
It’s one of the commonest things potential (and actual) coaching clients tell me: “I haven’t had time”
The best article I’ve read on the mindset shift we all need to make in order to make the changes we really want is by Shane Parrish who says:
“The short game is putting off anything that seems hard for doing something that seems easy or fun. The short game offers visible and immediate benefits.”
The long game is much harder. It’s about deferring short term rewards, it’s about self-discipline and it’s often about learning to say “no” and “yes” to different things.
This might be stopping scrolling through your phone and picking up a book or engaging with the what is going on around you. This might be making sure you make time every week for quality conversations with your team. This might be resisting back-to-back meetings and scheduling reflection and learning time. This might be taking a break at lunch time instead of eating at your desk. This might be putting up with bad behaviour instead of having that difficult conversation.
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.”
Which is why I often ask coaching clients to show me their calendars to see how they are currently spending their days. If change is going to happen, this is one of the first places it needs to happen.
“The longer you play the long game, the easier it is to play and the greater the rewards. The longer you play the short game the harder it becomes to change and the bigger the bill facing you when you do want to change.”
So, what is your short game and what would your long game look like?
And if you’re great at the short game and really, really struggling with your long game then you absolutely need a coach who can both support and challenge you.
All you have to do is choose change as part of a community or change 1-2-1 with a relational coach.
Remember what you are not changing you are choosing
PS You can read the whole of Shane’s article here: