Does Your Duck Say ‘Phooey’? - 4 Tips On What To Do When Your Duck Won’t Stand In The Row
Friday, February 29th, 2008
Are you struggling to get your ducks in a row? Trying to get everything in order before you take some sort of action -maybe leave your job, launch a new initiative, start a business. Are you delaying the realization of a vision?
If you know the frustration of trying to get your ducks in a row, getting everything just right, all taken care of the way you want it to be, then you’ll enjoy this cartoon by Victoria Roberts’ (published in a 2004 issue of Real Simple magazine).
The caption with it reads:
“I have one duck here that says ‘Phooey’ to being in a row.”
Ah, don’t you just love it!?! Try as we may, things don’t always go as we want them to. But you know, the problem isn’t that the ducks won’t line up, it’s that we delay action until they do. And reality check, they probably won’t ever line up as perfectly as you want! So what’s going on? Why are we so obsessed with getting everything so perfectly lined up?
Yes, it makes good sense to organize and plan before you launch into something new. But when we become a slave to perfection we put our lives on pause and deny our visions the chance to transform from possibility to reality!
You may wonder “well then what should I do?”
Here are my 3 tips on what to do when the ducks say “phooey”:
1) Dismiss, delay or delegate some of the ducks. Sometimes we have unrealistic expectations and want everything to come together all at once. Things take time and that’s okay. So decide which ducks really do need to be lined up now and which can be dismissed, delayed or delegated. Now let them go so you’re not distracted from your purposely chosen little duckies!
2) Create a flexible system to help you organize the tasks, milestones and deadlines related to your ducks. Once you get clear which ones you are going to be working on, you do need to do some planning. Flexibility is key here because you will be learning and discovering as you go. Make your plans adjustable. (See below to read about a system that I just discovered and has been working wonders for me!)
3) Get some creative perspective on the situation. Are you enslaving yourself to ego-fueled perfection when you demand that everything be lined up before you act? If so, then you are locking your mind into a perception of “the way things must be”, as if there is no other way that it could be. But there are always other ways things can be done. What if the ducks got into circles, or maybe pyramids? Or what if you let them play leapfrog. What would it be like if you brought a little creativity into the process?
4) Develop a sense for when the rows (or circles and pyramids) are ‘good enough’ and it’s time to go! So two ducks just sat down, one is doing a cartwheel, and three others are gossiping in the back corner. But you do have the majority of them at full attention, and deep down inside, you know this is good enough. It’s time to go! So now, what will you do differently with your phooey-speaking ducks?
