Spin your way to greater heights

Have you ever wondered where your well-developed ability to for laziness comes from? I say we will never really be able to pinpoint it but it comes from somewhere. I know it does. Because if you’re like most people, you see it pop its ugly head up at least once a day. Ok, more than once.

A lot of us think that the way to deal with it is to work on ourselves. That, however seems to almost always lead to the familiar vicious cycle of improving for a while, then reverting back to our old selves and starting all over again.

Oh! We are human beings, not robots so “working on ourselves” just doesn’t seem to lead to a permanent solution on this. Our “real” selves keep coming back to drag us back.

One of the best things you can do for yourself is to weave your success web and get caught in it. I mean, really caught in it like a fly gets caught in a spider’s web. It’s the best thing that will ever happen to you.

And here, there is no spider coming to get you. Only your best possible career, business, relationship and life.

Almost every upwardly mobile person vested in their advancement faces challenges in attracting more, doing more, having more, being more.

We know that those who invest in the time, effort and resources specifically designed to attract more responsibility, recognition, elevation, clients and business seem to get more than those who just sit there waiting for someone to hand them more responsibility, to give them a pat on the back, award them with a bigger more lucrative position or the clients to ring with their orders.

It never ceases to amaze me how many of us somehow don’t find the time to do the very things that could most likely transform our lives to move us to the enjoyment of the success we spend most of our waking hours yearning for. The whole “effort thing” gets put last — at the bottom of our priority list and each time it comes up, we procrastinate on it.

It’s a bright sunny day so I am offering two ways to solve this.

First, get off your rear end, summon up your willpower and just do the work. Ha! I can almost see your emails filling my inbox with a barrage of questions and the challenges you’ve faced trying to do this and why it hasn’t worked. For most of us, this option sounds about as simple as walking on hot coals.

The second option is to weave your own success web. Disclaimer, however, the web you are to weave is not for catching other people, it is for you to get caught in.

Take this weekly column I write, for example. That’s part of my success web. I need to hand in my articles on Wednesdays for them to be published on Friday’s paper. No guessing who looks incompetent, unreliable and unattractive to work with if it is not handed in on time.

I also write a monthly column for the New Vision of Uganda. If my article is not submitted by the first Monday of the month to be published on the first Thursday of the month, guess who gets the probing questions? Guess who committed to thousands of eager readers in both regions to supply weekly and monthly insights into their personal and leadership growth?

Well, so much for lazy! Lazy goes out the window or my credibility suffers. My credibility and reputation are valuable, so motivation to protect them is always in great supply guaranteed by my commitment to the media companies I’m privileged to work with and the readership who have come to expect to hear from me every week and every month. I am talking about commitment.

Reverend Michael Foss puts it very succinctly: “Have you ever noticed how the idea of commitment is easy, but the living into it is hard? I think that’s because commitment is one of those realities that really doesn’t take hold until it is difficult. Commitment is deciding that the price is worth paying for the goal that will be achieved.”

I bet you’re starting to see how this works. Your success web is something you build to TRAP you into doing the work. No willpower required. And the longer you spin, the stronger your web gets. And the bigger and wider it becomes.

You know what starts to happen when you do things like this on a consistent basis? Great stuff happens, I guarantee it. It may take a while but it eventually starts. Slowly at first. So painfully slowly in fact, you might not even notice and possibly want to give up the web spinning.

But as your web gets bigger and stronger, the motion begins. People start talking about you. They start responding. They start commenting on what you’re doing. Before long, you’re one of those people who has important and hugely rewarding projects to do, places to go and people to see.

Pretty soon, “lazy” becomes a fixture on your wall and just sits by watching you get things done.

I highly recommend that you start spinning.

Ms Ruligirwa-Kamara is a certified corporate coach. Email: [email protected]