As an executive coach I meet a lot of people who work with me because they feel “stuck.” They are at a point where they are just not sure which way to turn.
I felt that way myself the other week when I was on a flight to New Mexico. I was in the center seat of the plane and my video screen was frozen. It just said “Welcome” and that’s it. The “continue” button would not do a thing.
I had gotten up at 3 am that morning so I was really looking forward to watching some news or maybe listening to some music on the flight ,but I couldn’t since my video screen was “stuck”.
The two people on either side of me were not having this problem. They were actively watching live tv or movies and it looked like they were enjoying them.
I guess I could have taken a nap, but I decided to think of all the things I could do in this situation:
— I worked on a few pages of the next book I am writing.
— I perfected a speech I was going to give when while in New Mexico
— I worked on our Holiday Newsletter, since we like to get it out early in the year
— I made a list of five prospects that I would like to court this quarter
My point is that when you are stuck you have to think of all the angles you could take to get unstuck and be productive.
In my case, I just needed better ways to use the time. Sometimes, however, you have a challenge where you are stuck, so you need to think of the many angles you might take to solve it.
AN EXERCISE TO GET YOU UNSTUCK
1. Take a sheet of paper and draw a big circle in the middle. This represents your challenge.
2. Write the actual challenge in the circle.
3. Now draw at least four lines from the circle going north, south, east and west.
4. Draw smaller circles at the end of the lines and think of all the things you could do to tackle the challenge and get unstuck.
5. Once you’ve put at least four ideas outside the circle you can put a big circle around the one that makes the most sense to try.
