Would you make a good boss?
By: Sri Goduru
Tags: Work Life Balance, Productivity, Goal Setting, Mindfulness, Procrastination

No, not a boss to others but a boss to yourselves.

When I quit my IT job and started my coaching business one thing became very clear: I am a terrible employee but an equally horrible boss.

For the first time in my entire life, I was free. I had no one to answer to whereas at school, College or my corporate career I was always answerable to someone. Even while having a boss, I wasn’t really productive at work so being my own boss just amplified my productivity issues.

A few years ago, while having lunch I asked a colleague of mine: “What would you do if you won 100 million dollars?”. He went blank. Of course, the initial thoughts of buying an expensive car, home or taking a vacation came to his mind but he soon realized he was not worried about how he would spend the money but he was more dumbfounded about all the time he would have in his hands. In his own words: “That’s scary. I wouldn’t know what to do with all that time”.

With great power comes great responsibility. - Uncle Ben, Spider-Man.

Years later, although I didn’t win 100 million dollars but my savings from my IT job were enough to take me for 2–3 years without worrying about any other source of income(I had moved to India). I had loads of time. I didn’t have to do shit. This triggered in me an early-mid-life crisis. I would wake up every day, go to my office space and not want to work. This is my own coaching business which I thought I loved. What is going on??!

Having more time at your hand could be more of a curse than a boon. After all, we don’t get motivated by money, we get motivated by what the money means to us.

The problem wasn’t that I didn’t have the energy or the skills the problem was I was feeling mentally drained. I was resisting the work.

I just didn’t know how to boss myself. i.e I don’t know how to talk to myself. No, I don’t mean I am asking you to act like a schizophrenic…;).

I am referring to the internal dialogue we have.

Would you like yourself if you were your own boss?

Be honest.

This inner boss is your inner dialogue. The type of internal dialogue we have is so critical to success in any project we take up. I had to learn how to boss myself first.

I had many bosses in my IT career and the ones I really respected and admired were the bosses who explained to me why the work I am doing is important and what it does for the company.

If you apply that to your own case, you will see a tremendous shift in perspective. Instead, we go to do the opposite. We start a task with the “How” or even the “What” and not the “Why”.

If you want to be a great boss to yourself and others:

Start with Why — Simon Sinek

Start with the “Why”. There is a book by Simon Sinek which goes further into the leadership aspect of it too. Highly recommend it.

Why is “Why” important you may ask?

Because we are emotional creatures.

I was sharing with a client of mine recently in our coaching session the following distinction: Emotion-driven action versus logic-driven action.

If every human was logical major industries would just wipe out.

Examples include: Self-help, Social-media, Gaming, Cosmetics, Marketing, Dating sites, Advertisement, Sales, Entertainment…. the list can go on. Do you get it? Pretty much every business out there…

Emotions are essential to the human experience. We are emotional beings and we act based on our emotion rather than our logic.

We need to master our emotions to live and adapt in our workplace and society in general.

There are three stages of a task: Why, What, How.

“Why” brings out the purpose of a task. The emotion.

“What” defines the parameters and

“How” lays out the execution plan.

Logically we know we need to lose weight, eat healthily, save money, workout. ..etc. Logically, we know blah blah blah...

Have you ever tried to logically resist a tempting dessert? It’s quite hard. But, the moment you associate emotional pain to a bad habit you start developing the willpower and discipline to alter it.

Similarly, to start a task we need to associate a positive reward with the “Why”.

My “Why” to write this post is: “To impact at least a few people reading this and help them boss themselves better. I would like to see their lives change forever after reading these words”.

Every morning, Do you have to boss yourself to brush your teeth?

I hope not!

Because it’s a habit by now. Once you become a “Why” guy and start tasks regularly and it turns into a habit. You may not even consciously think of the “Why”. You will dive into action because it has become second nature.

So, start the habit of starting tasks with the “Why”. You will go places and will leave behind procrastination as a distant memory.

If you are one of those people whose “Why” is strong but are still not able to form that habit I have a cool strategy for you too.

You assign a new boss. A proxy. An accountability partner. This works like a charm. Here you are making your “Why” very real. A real person. In this case, The “Why” becomes: “ I don’t want to lose that bet” or “ I don’t want to lose his/her respect”.

A recent finding of mine has been a site called Stickk.com

Stickk lets you pick a habit you want to install and then if you fail it will charge your credit card and send the money to charity/anti-charity of your choice. You could simply set up a Sticck account to achieve this and pick a referee(boss) and start taking action every day. I have never failed on a Stickk task so far because I pick anti-charity like NRA(National Rifle Association) which I despise and I don’t want to give money to these people. I am emotionally invested now.

Even with that in place, I had to boss myself continually (multiple days) to put down my thoughts here. Remind myself why I am doing it.

But, here is the brighter side to it: It’s temporary. The initial pain of starting a task is temporary and soon it will become a habit.

In fact, I am on a Stickk challenge right now to write at least an hour every day for 30 days. So, yes I am one of those people who need that extra push in spite of a strong “Why”. I am on day 8 and it is much easier to start writing. Stickk challenges work. Do it!

Non-starting is the killer of many dreams and the ruiner of lives. Start something, anything. Start a 30-day trial, or start your sobriety from that addiction you have been putting off or start connecting with your partner better.

JUST START.

If you are a good boss(goal-setting) and even a greater employee(executing) then nothing is impossible anymore!

“If we don’t discipline ourselves, the world will do it for us.” — William Feather

The more you don’t boss yourself, the more others will boss you(at work or otherwise). Well, that life would suck, no?