You may have heard of Seth Godin. If you haven’t, I would recommend you read his blog. Or even better, read one of his books.

I enjoy Seth’s writing. Some of his books have been inspirational for me. So, I was intrigued when one of our Smarter Eggs, Jonathan Amm, highlighted to me an interesting collaborative project that had been organised for Seth’s 50th birthday. Given that his writing has featured in every Smarter Egg learning group so far, I felt duty bound to participate.

I invited some of the Smarter Egg community (tribe) to share how Seth had inspired them. I collected some of the inputs and submitted this piece to the project.

(Congratulations to Ben Love for spearheading this initiative and thanks again to Roger Overall for his wonderful photography).

For many people, procrastination is perceived as being the same as laziness. If you’re not getting things done, if you’re not meeting your commitments, people are quick to generate all manner of unpleasant labels:  sloppy, unreliable, useless, lazy.

But is this fair? Is it even true?

For me, laziness suggests an unwillingness to do anything. When I think of laziness, I think of apathy, inactivity and a lack of energy.

Wait a minute. Procrastination isn’t actually a passive or inactive process at all. It’s, in fact, a very active process. We choose to do something else rather than the thing we should/could/want to be doing. We substitute one activity for the one we are avoiding. So, for most of us, we are not apathetic, inactive or lazy when we are procrastinating.

I would even argue that using terms like laziness will only feed a negative mindset that will make your procrastination habit progressively worse. In our programmes and when coaching clients, I always say that you can’t criticise yourself out of procrastination. Breaking the habit has to begin with an acceptance of a positive outlook, a belief that it is possible for you to replace procrastination with production.

Just because you’re procrastinating on something does not mean you’re lazy.

What is it that causes us to delay action? What is it that causes us to procrastinate?

Steven Pressfield calls it Resistance. His wonderful book, ‘The War of Art’, explores this concept better than any other book I have found on the topic. It’s a book I use in the Smarter Egg Overcoming Procrastination programmes.

This quote captures the essence of the idea:

Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.

If you have ever wanted to do something new, exciting and rewarding but found yourself not quite getting there, then you have already met Resistance. As far as I can see, we all have.

I was intrigued to see recently that Seth Godin is now exploring this very topic in his new book, ‘Linchpin’. Seth suggests that there is a biological source for Resistance. He calls it ‘the lizard brain’. Of course, this proposes that everyone has it. And I think he’s right.

How do we defeat Resistance? Acknowledging that it’s there is a good start. Understanding how it affects us will make things clearer. But, we only succeed when we roll up our sleeves and take it on. Defeating Resistance, overcoming procrastination, making a start: these need to be active processes. Movement is required.

What’s your next step?

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One common misconception about procrastination is that we only tend to put off the things we hate to do. There are so many examples of tasks we would love to avoid: housework, going to the dentist, having a ‘difficult’ conversation etc. It’s easy to understand why we might choose to delay acting on those.

Would it surprise you to learn that we can be equally as bad at putting off tasks that bring us pleasure? At the simplest level, this can include our inability to redeem frequent flyer miles on time but can also extend to the point where we actually are deferring our capability to live happy lives.

In the ‘rat race’ paradigm, it’s normal to defer the lives we want to live until we achieve our goal, our promotion, our next big target. “When ‘the big thing’ happens, then I can start enjoying my life!”

This article from the New York Times explores research on why we respond better to tighter deadlines when redeeming gift vouchers. Some of us might shy away from deadlines as we see them as being ‘overly-controlled’. But, ask yourself, why would you postpone enjoying life?

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Here now is a brief snapshot of some of those conversations, which, with the aid of some amazing photography from Roger Overall, gives a good sense of what the learning groups are all about.

A new learning group, built around our ‘Break From The Pack’ programme is about to start on February 1st. If you’d like to find out more about how to get involved, just let me know.

Credits!

The film-maker: Donal O’Shea. If you’re looking for help or inspiration on the use of video or film in your business, call Donal at +353 87 766 9776.

The contributors:

Roger Overall, Documentary Photographer

Greg Canty, Fuzion

Richard O’Brien, KJ O’Brien & Co.

John Prendergast, Aonach

Samantha Rathling, Expect Talent

One of the keys to overcoming procrastination is to allow ourselves to build systems, structures and relationships that give us the means to overcome the impulse to procrastinate. This piece from the The Economist provides a great example of a ‘commitment contract’, using the example of one of the most common New Year Resolutions – the desire to quit smoking.

If you are already struggling to make progress with your New Year Resolutions, try to think about ways that you could change the definition of what you are trying to achieve. Try to focus more on what you might lose. Try to involve others so that you don’t want to let them down. Try to put some form of external stimulus in place that keeps you going when it might be easier to put things off.

New Year Resolutions aren’t easy to achieve. But they’re not quite as difficult or as hopeless as you might fear.

The group has a diverse mix of people: from multi-nationals, academia, business owners and individual professionals. One such professional is Roger Overall, an award-winning documentary photographer. Recently, we were privileged to have Roger capture some scenes from a learning session. And he was even kind enough to write about it in this blog post.

Roger makes reference to a documentary film about the Smarter Egg experience. This will be available online here in the near future.

The sixth generation of ‘Break From The Pack’ programme participants are about to launch in January 2010. Already, this group is almost full.

Many people have asked me recently for recommendations for good books either for themselves or for loved ones. So, here are a few ideas for possible Christmas presents this year.

We have kicked around many books this year that have explored the irrationality of human behaviour but one that stands out as readable, interesting and thought provoking would be Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behaviour This is an ideal gift for anyone who is fascinated by how people behave.

Robert Cialdini’s ‘Influence’ is a real classic but this book, Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion, is a more up-to-date and accessible take on this material. And because it’s broken into 50 individual fascinating stories, it’s ideal for those of you who like to read in the bathroom!

Christmas time is, apparently, all about celebration and good cheer, so what better time to be reading about how to be happier! In Happier: Can you learn to be happy?, Tal Ben-Shahar shares some of the learnings from his popular class at Harvard on this very topic. This book is easy to read and provides us with some pointers as to how we can be happier. Only problem here is to make sure the gift recipient doesn’t think you’re saying they’re a grumpy so-and-so.

Once upon a time, it was very common to see a Compendium of some description given as a gift at Christmas. Just like Annuals of our favourite comics, it was the kind of book you only tended to see at Christmas. If you’re buying a book for a new business owner this year, then you could do a lot worse than this compendium of business wisdom from Guy Kawasaki called Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging and Outmarketing Your Competition.

As Greg Canty has been rightly highlighting, there are plenty of great Irish book options available this Christmas. There are quite a few from ‘experts’ with their views on the economic crisis. Too much of this genre is weighed down by excessive finger-pointing but one exception is Marc Coleman’s Back from the Brink: Ireland’s Road to Recovery. This is a very sharp analysis of Ireland’s recent economic history with some challenging and stimulating perspectives on the future.

And finally, to the perfect present for a father-to-be, or any recent first-time father. In fact, you don’t have to be a father to love this book. Adam Brophy writes a weekly column on fatherhood in the Irish Times and his book The Bad Dad’s Survival Guide is a gently comic walk through the stages of being a dad. If you are bothered by the question ‘what do you give the man who has everything?’, this is a good answer.

There has rarely been a better time to quit. Everything appears to be changing. And changing faster than we ever expected. Old models are crumbling. Some new ones are emerging. There’s a lot of chaos in between.

If you have been worried about the social impact of quitting, then maybe this is as good as it gets. With the impact of the economic recession now at its peak, behaviours and expectations have changed. Displays of wealth are embarassing. Frugality is the new chic. Austerity is the new religion. Or so it appears at this point, at the turn of the year, indeed the decade.

But what is it that you should quit? In The Dip: The Extraordinary Benefits of Knowing When to Quit and When to Stick, Seth Godin asks whether you are in a ‘dip’ or a cul-de-sac. And his message is simple: if you’re in a cul-de-sac, it’s time to quit; if you’re in a dip, keep going.

Most of us probably have some dips and cul-de-sacs. We are irrationally compelled to have more than one. We need to figure out which is which. And we need to do it quickly.

Many business people are hanging on. Hanging on for the recession to go away. Hanging on until the good old days come back. If you’re hanging on for the return of 100% mortgages, you probably don’t need to be told that’s a cul-de-sac. And you do need to quit.

But some are surviving. They’re making progress, albeit modest progress. And many may not be realising financial gain. And their biggest question right now is: am I in a dip or a cul-de-sac?

The good news is that quitting the cul-de-sacs gives you more energy to push through the dips. As Godin says, we can’t be the best in the world (our world) at everything. The world needs us to be the best at something though. There we need to dominate. Elsewhere, we should probably leave.

You may well be working on your plans for 2010. You’re probably calling it a strategy. How many of those plans involve continuing down a cul-de-sac? Be honest. If you can’t, ask others. Ask your boss. Ask your customers. Ask those who won’t tell what you want to hear.

Here’s a great question: if we could start all over again from January 1st, how would we do it? Knowing now what we do, what wouldn’t we have got involved in or started?

Got the answers? Great.

Quit the cul-de-sacs. Embrace the dips. What’s stopping you?

He claims that companies that declare they intend to dominate everything wind up dominating nothing.

This makes a lot of sense to me. Yet, I’m guilty of trying to succeed in too many markets. And most of the businesses that I interact with tend to do the same. Why do we do this? Is it related to our irrational compulsion to keep options open? Or is it as a result of legacy work – just because we once did some good work in a particular space, does this mean we commit to it forever?

You might say that this is related to how large a business is or how many resources we have available. And this is somewhat true. Bigger businesses can afford to play in multiple markets but it doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. Jack Welch, in his time as GE CEO, famously introduced the #1 or #2 rule (if we’re not #1 or #2 in the market, then we get out of that business). And I can’t think of many companies that are larger or more diverse than GE.

Harari outlines seven steps to dominating and the one that resonates strongest with me is ‘Be a Laser, Not a Floorlamp’. How many of us are trying to spread our focus too wide – trying to illuminate the entire floor instead of focusing on a particular spot?

We spend a lot of time telling the market what it is we do. Maybe we should be thinking more about what we DON’T do. Figure out where you are not dominant, or are unlikely ever to be dominant. Ask yourself the question ‘am I better off leaving this market behind?’ And then tell the market. Here’s what we do, we’re focused and you need to hear our story. Here’s what we don’t do, we suggest you talk to others that will help you.

Do you want to be dominant? Then, maybe the first question you need to answer is ‘what market should I leave?’