Get your ish together: the Beginning

So here we are so close to 2018...and if 2017 looks like a blur of what happened, how did that happen and 'mmm kay'. Perhaps your 2017 looked much like this comic strip I reference to many of my clients.

Perhaps if this is also, indeed, how your 2017 can be summarized, this series of getting your ish together might help to give you a step towards making some real change in 2018.



This series will focus on helping individuals struggling with making the first steps of change in whatever their current situation requires. For some of us it's related to getting our ish (AKA health, career, business, relationships, marriage, etc.) together.

The biggest part of our struggle is beginning. The hardest part of our struggle is consistent persistence. The last part is building on, which really uses the first skills repeatedly to make change.

So let's start with the beginning. You need to get your ish together. But first and foremost we need to figure out what our ish is. PICK ONE THING. Ultimate failure will derive from the notion that we must work on multiple ish at the same time. Research and data is just proving that as human beings we SUCK at multitasking. We work the best when we focus one thing at a time. Yeah, I know. Ridiculous. With most of our unhealthy thought errors surrounding black and white thinking (either something it is or isn't) we all would rather function with either 'I'm going to lose 50 pounds in two weeks or I'm going down several cheesecakes'.

How about "I'm going to lose 50 pounds before my Umpteen class reunion, or I'm not going"...or my favorite for couples counseling "Either he/she is going to change XX/YY or I'm done".

It just seems we have a hard time getting our ish together because we can't focus on changing one thing at a time. We want multiple things to change...in a short amount of time in order to stay motivated.

So the first few steps you need to consider will be:
1. What's my ish priority - Put on your thinking caps (yeah those caps from elementary school), and brainstorm that ish you need to work out. David Allen's "Getting things done" book outlines the importance of brain dumping. And just like other...dumps...it feels good to get ish out of your brain and onto something you can sort through.
2. Pick you top 3 ishes and then circle the top ish - This is where is gets challenging. You'll need to zero in on one ish to really make progress in it. This will help you naturally prioritize whats important to you.
3. Put the other ishes away - Yes, save that document, screenshot that view, or place that paper somewhere safe. But get those other ishes out of the way. Many times in my own experience when one ish gets challenging or downright sucks, I'll start to peruse my old list to find a new and exciting ish to work on. This feeds my inconsistency and prevents me from truly finishing things.

So let's start with these (3) beginning pieces to help you really focus and position yourself to work on that ish for 2018.

Ciao.