{"id":1440,"date":"2008-12-24T02:57:31","date_gmt":"2008-12-24T09:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/2008\/12\/24\/my-own-worst-enemy\/"},"modified":"2019-08-07T14:33:07","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T21:33:07","slug":"my-own-worst-enemy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=1440","title":{"rendered":"My Own Worst Enemy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"high-heels.jpg\"Once in a while I get the urge to wear some insanely high heeled shoes.\u00a0 After an evening of wobbling about on these treacherous stilts my feet feel like they’ve been tossed into a dryer with a couple of cement blocks.\u00a0 Ouch!\u00a0 Why do I do it?\u00a0 This is just one of many examples of “problems of our own making” that I’ve observed in myself and others over the years. We dream of squeezing into the jeans we’ve outgrown by 3 sizes, but persist in deleterious eating habits and a lifetime aversion to exercise.\u00a0 We post our resumes on job web sites when we know that over 80% of jobs are found through personal connections and networking.\u00a0 We marinate on some irritating thing a co-worker said or did, allowing our mood to plummet and our own performance to suffer.\u00a0 We know our project schedule is hopelessly optimistic, but avoid having the tough conversation with our sponsor that could put things right.<\/p>\n

These kinds of problems seem to spring from a few root causes:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Something we are saying that we shouldn’t, like “Sure, we can cut 3 months off of the schedule and still ship with quality.”<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Something that we’re NOT saying that we should, like “This schedule is pure fiction.”<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Same as above, only with actions instead of words.\u00a0 Maybe you hit the “Send” button before thinking how nasty your email might sound when read in the voice of the Wicked Witch of the West.\u00a0 Or perhaps you can’t be bothered to respond to email or phone calls until repeatedly beseeched.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Messed up thinking.\u00a0 The reality distortion field inside of my head seems plenty real, but I have long since stopped believing that my perception of what’s going on matches reality in any way.\u00a0 It’s possible to work up a pretty good head of steam with incessant negative self-talk and persistent moping.\u00a0 Do a little reality check.\u00a0 Is there a perspective from which this situation is perfectly acceptable?\u00a0 Is there a potential upside hidden in the dung heap?\u00a0 If so, there’s a pretty good chance it’s a self-inflicted mindset problem.<\/p>\n

No one can give you what you deny yourself!\u00a0 If it’s a self-induced problem, get out a mirror and have a heart-to-heart talk with yourself about getting out of your own way.\u00a0 Then get whatever help you need to change your behavior, language or thinking.\u00a0 Don’t give up when you relapse.\u00a0 Winston Churchill said “Success is largely a matter of going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”<\/p>\n

Here’s hoping that Santa brings you the gift of awareness, clarity, and choices over behavior, language and thoughts that serve you better,<\/p>\n

– Kimberly Wiefling<\/a>, Author of Scrappy Project Management<\/a>, regularly one of the top 100 project management books in English in the USA, Japan<\/a>, Germany<\/a>, France<\/a>, sometimes Canada<\/a>, but usually NOT in the UK<\/a>, for some reason.\u00a0 Help me solve this problem (except by dropping “scrappy” or using proper English) and I’ll send you a free book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once in a while I get the urge to wear some insanely high heeled shoes.\u00a0 After an evening of wobbling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[517,519,516,518,513,515,514,76,507],"class_list":["post-1440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","tag-awareness","tag-choice","tag-churchill","tag-clarity","tag-problems","tag-reality","tag-root-cause","tag-schedule","tag-self-induced"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14128,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440\/revisions\/14128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}