Does My Length Scare You?

As you are reading this I’m probably lying by the pool in Vegas soaking up the rays, sipping on a cocktail and hurling obscenities at Scrabble on my iPhone for cheating and using words I’ve never heard of again.

However, I didn’t want to desert you whilst in the desert so I thought I’d leave you this post to keep you going.

Feel free to browse the archives in my absence and if you really want to make an old man very happy indeed, grab yourself a copy of ‘Don’t Ask Stupid Questions’ in either hardback or ebook. The book of which sales guru (and I use that word advisably, this guy has sold millions of books) Jeffrey Gitomer said: “I recommend you buy it now, read it as soon as you get it, and put it into practice an hour after you read it” Good old Jeffers, that’s what I say.

Anyway, enough with the shameless self promotion because the pool awaits. See you in a week or so!

Without any shadow of a doubt, the single biggest hurdle I ever have to overcome with clients, is a lack of commitment to the change process.  It’s not self limiting beliefs, anxiety or even procrastination. They’re all relatively easy to overcome for any competent life coach. Assuming the will is there from the client that is.

You could be forgiven for assuming nobody would spend several hundred dollars on hiring a life coach and then not then do the required work, but you’d be wrong. It doesn’t occur very often, but it does happen on occasions and it can be a tad frustrating.

I think some people hold the belief that simply hiring a life coach is enough. It’s the same reason three quarters of people who pay a monthly gym membership never actually go. After all, if they’re paying $50 a month surely then having to actually go there and exercise as well, is a bit too much to ask, right?

If you’re a member of a gym and one day went for a workout at exactly the same time as all the other members decided to, you wouldn’t be able to get into the parking lot. Gym owners know this will never happen and that half their clients have no commitment whatsoever to making the most of their membership.

They also know that for some people the money isn’t an issue and they’ll not get round to actually canceling their membership, because to do so would seem like failure. After all, if it is still open there is always that chance they’ll get round to going again. Just not today of course because it’s sunny and there’s the grill to fire up.

I have written a stream of long posts recently. This isn’t really by design, I didn’t start off thinking this needs to be a 3,000 word post or that needs to be a 5,000 word post. No, I simply set off trying to define and explain a topic and however long it takes is however long it takes.

I’m not keen on doing multiple part posts, I’d rather just get the information out there and let those people that want to read it, do so and everybody else can move along.

It may seem that I throw a lot of irrelevant information in to some of my posts, and whereas obviously I do sometimes do that, other times there is a specific reason for what I’m saying and how I’m saying it.

I think maybe I should explain in a post one day, but if you have a dig around in the posts on How To Avoid Getting Ripped Off and How To Get An Upgrade, you’ll get an idea of the some of the techniques I’m using to ensure I deliver the correct message.

After a recent long post I got the following e-mail from a reader, or more pertinently, an ex-reader. I’m copying it in full and exactly as it came to me with only the ladies name removed.

“tim, sadly, i’ve unsubscribed but wanted to give you a little feedback.

THE LENGTH SCARES ME!

if your posts were shorter (even if this meant more frequent) i wouldn’t be so intimidated by the reading commitment.

best wishes,”

Leaving aside the obvious joke that never in my life has a women told me my length scares her, what should I have made of an e-mail like that?

In the post Coping With Conflict & Criticism I spoke of analyzing criticism (or feedback as it is quite rightly called here) and seeing if there was value to be gleaned from it.

Earlier this week I was talking with a friend and she was asking me what direction I thought she should take her blog writing in. I told her to write whatever she wants to write about, and not get wrapped up in trying to figure out what other people expected or wanted from her.

It’s much easier to write in your own style and find people that like it, than it is to adapt your style to fit other peoples requirements and expectations. The latter approach is going to lead to a lot of stress, second guessing and it wont be a whole lot of fun.

That is how I write and it is the only way I’ll write. Some people will hate my humor, some my writing style and some be intimidated by my incredible length, but I don’t care, because I’m not writing for them, I’m writing for you. And if you stop reading, I’m writing for the next person.

I am genuinely very grateful to anybody that takes the time to e-mail me to offer feedback and that includes this e-mail. However, I then have to decide whether the feedback is useful to me, and if it isn’t, the prudent thing to do, is simply ignore it.

Probably the longest post I’ve ever written could have been read comfortably in 10 minutes, and most, considerably less time than that. In the great scheme of things that’s not a lot of commitment I think we can agree. So somebody telling me that long posts intimidate them tells me way more about them, than it does about long posts.

I replied to the lady, thanked her and said it wouldn’t really alter what I was doing. The purpose of this blog is to help people change. Bullet point lists that could usually be filed under ‘The Glaringly Obvious’ don’t do that, except in very rare instances. I then pointed her in the right direction of a handful of sites that can offer the kind of scannable 60 second posts it seems she wanted.

What I wanted to say if I’m being brutally honest is “You need a life coach, because if 10 minute long blog posts scare and intimidate you then there is a bigger issue lurking under the surface that probably needs dealing with”

In my experience people never truly lack commitment, they just lack the ability to apply it appropriately. They can be incredibly committed to lying on the sofa watching TV, making sure they have beer in the fridge or not getting their work done, but less so when it comes to sticking to the diet, getting to work on time or reading blog posts.

I thought it would be appropriate to drop in a superficial bullet point list here in remembrance of my fallen subscriber and just to show I can be adaptable. Please feel free to scan at your leisure and tell me there isn’t enough depth.

1. See The Big Picture

If you are wanting to lose weight and you open the fridge to be greeted by a huge slice of chocolate cake, defocus! Do not lock in on the cake like a Pitbull locking onto a Mail Mans testicles. Stop for a moment and think about what it is you want to achieve overall rather than the pleasure of that short-term gain.

2. Future Pace

This is an NLP term that is crucial for a lot of self-development work. Take yourself forward on your own time line. How are you going to feel in 10 minutes or 10 hours when the cake has been devoured?

Step into that feeling and own it. If that doesn’t help and you’re more motivated by pleasure than avoiding pain, imagine how great you’re going to feel tomorrow when you know you’ve stayed committed to your goal.

With future pacing it’s important to see what you would see, hear what you would hear and allow yourself to feel like you know you would feel.

3. Decide

Do not allow your unconscious to take over here, make a conscious decision. If you want the cake then make a decision to eat it, just don’t allow yourself to default into a negative action. The latter leads to a sense of helplessness, the former keeps you in control.

It is much easier to hop back on the wagon if you know you made the decision to get off in the first place rather than believing your were thrown off for reason or reasons unknown.

4. Don’t Believe In Your Beliefs, Unless They Believe In You

The beliefs that you cannot lose weight, quit smoking, start up your own business, become happy, get a partner are just that, beliefs. Everyday when you wake up you have the choice to believe something different, something empowering and something that will move you forward.

Or you have the choice to carry on believing something that you know will hold you back and lead to frustration and disappointment. Can it be that easy? Yes it can, but you have to be committed to believing it first and there is the rub.

I could have added a few other crap bullet points about getting help from loved ones and friends, removing temptation, journaling, building up routines etc, but I’ll leave those for the other blogs, because you’re way too intelligent to not know that stuff, and after all, I don’t want to scare you with my length.