Sometimes my brain just gets stuck.
My older son got me hooked on Wordle a couple of years ago. If you’ve never played Wordle, you should. It’s a fun, daily New York Times word puzzle where you have up to six tries to guess the five-letter word of the day.
It usually takes just two or three minutes to complete, and I usually can guess it in three or four tries.
Usually.
But one day last week, by the fourth try I only got as far as
_ _ U L A.
I didn’t have many letters left to play with (like playing “Hangman,” I had already eliminated the most commonly used ones, including the rest of the vowels and the Y), and I simply could not see how the remaining letters could possibly form a real word.
(Admit it, you’re trying to figure it out now, aren’t you?)
Finally, I punted, filling in random 5-letter words I knew were wrong just to have the answer revealed and put myself out of my misery.
The winning word: UVULA.
I realized I missed the mark because of two faulty but unconscious assumptions: First, I completely forgot that although I had guessed U already, I only tried it once and there could have been another one. And second, I was mentally pronouncing the middle “U” as “oo” rather than “yoo”.
I rolled my eyes and mentally kicked myself. So much for that PhD in linguistics, smarty pants. Totally useless.
It’s amazing where we get stuck.
And it doesn’t matter how “smart” we are in some ways; we all get stuck in others.
Whatever we get stuck on, it’s almost always because of one (or more) of three core reasons:
- Limiting beliefs about our own skill or capacity
- Having too many options (“Analysis paralysis”), or
- Fear of rejection or failure
We get stuck on making big decisions, like how to solve a problem and when to make a move.
But sometimes we even get stuck on seemingly simple things.
For example, how many times in the past few weeks have you clicked the link for the Adoption Center’s “Winter Wishes Amazon Wishlist, but still not purchased a gift for a child in foster care?
I’ll bet it’s some version of those three reasons. Do any of these sound familiar?
- “I’ll browse now, but I’m too tired to make a decision now so I'll do it later.”
- “It's not that important; I'll get around to it when I have more time” (limiting belief about the magnitude of the difference you, personally, can and will make through that gift)
- “There’s so many options; let me think about it some more and come back to it.”
- “I want to make sure I buy the right gift, and don’t spend too much or too little so I feel good about what I chose…”
The irony is that you’re probably contemplating whether to buy a scarf and mittens set or a gift card to McDonalds… but your brain is treating it like you’re buying them a car.
Remember, you can’t choose “wrong;” these are items children specifically requested. So be good to them AND to yourself – just pick one, be done with the decision, and set your brain free!
Besides: You can never make a mistake by being too generous.
And speaking of holiday gift-giving, we’re just a week away (is that possible?!) from the exciting pre-launch of my new, fully self-paced, online course, “Speaking to Influence”!
(Stay tuned for special subscriber-only Black Friday preview holiday pricing for the Speaking to Influence course in next week’s newsletter!)
Are you tired of feeling like your words just don’t land with the impact you need them to have? When you talk, do you want to hear people say “Yes” more often?
Building off my best-selling book, Speaking to Influence: Mastering Your Leadership Voice, and filled with coaching tips, extra resources, and thousands of dollars worth of bonus materials, it’s a chance to have me talk you through the program from start to finish, all to ensure you learn to master the Three Cs of Executive Presence, to
- Command the room
- Connect with the audience, and
- Close the deal.
Now tell me that wouldn’t be a massive advantage in today’s job market!
That’s another place we can feel really stuck – when looking for the next career role.
The biggest challenge is figuring out how to stand out from the competition (in the RIGHT way.) One client said she just posted an opening for a senior HR role and within 24 hours received over 700 applications! That's a LOT of competition.
If you want a road map to success, here’s a thought-provoking self-assessment to help you identify all the different ways you need to be prepared to compete in that executive job market. (I'll send you a copy of your responses so you can refer to it as a checklist for areas to keep working on.)
Lucky for you, last week Robynn Storey and I ran a terrific LinkedIn Live with nearly 250 attendees: Top 10 Pitfalls to Avoid When Seeking Your Next Executive Role. Watch the replay here, and feel free to share this with others who might need to hear it.
It’s time to get unstuck. Pick any one of the amazing resources above to get started today.
And after you’ve picked out a gift for a child in foster care from the Adoption Center’s Amazon Wish List above, reward yourself with two minutes of fun playing Wordle.
Good news: At least you know the word of the day won’t be UVULA!
