I’m stuck and I can’t get started

I just got off the phone with a prominent journalist who exclaimed, “Matthew, I’m stuck!  I’ve got all these incredible ideas and projects that are 1/2 started but I can’t get anything to move past the idea stage.  What do I do?”

This is a buddy of mine so I took off my buddy hat and put on my coach hat.  I asked him, “How long have you been stuck?”  He replied, “Ever since having a fall-out with my last editor.”  Of course, you know my next question, “Tell me more about that?”.  You see, coaching is the process of supporting powerful people in being empowered and coming up with powerful solutions for themselves.

He goes on to tell me about how he got into a battle with his last editor over who owned his content.  The relationship ended badly.  Very badly.  Both sides felt taken advantage of and my friend was very upset about the outcome.

“It’s simple really” I say to him.  “You must take some time to understand your editor’s perspective so you can let this go”.  “If you can stop protecting yourself from people in the future taking advantage of you, your creativity and power will return.  Why do you think he reacted so negatively?”  After a few guiding questions, he said something very revealing and at the heart of the matter.  “My content was of great value to the paper.  My editor wanted it exclusively and when I threatened to take it else were he became hostile.  Then I reacted like he didn’t understand my goals and it all deteriorated from there.”

After a just a few more moments of coaching I had his assignment in mind.  I call it The Clean Up Steps.  It’s an easy way to reset the relationship back to normal.  Plus it clears any fear or negativity that get stuck in your mindset and stops you from taking action.

Click here to read my post on The 5 Steps to Clean Up Any Relationship.

Author

Matthew Ferry