Techniques To Get Moving When You’re Stalled

You know what you’ve got to do. But sometimes you can’t get started. You think about all the states of mind and behaviors we’re supposed to muster in order to be successful:

• Vision for a clear picture of where we want our business or department to be down the road.
• Confidence that the course of action we’ve chosen is better than other options.
• Optimism that things will turn out positively.
• Courage to challenge the fear of failure.

It’s great to be at the top of your game when you’ve got important business decisions to make. And it’s natural to want to summon all the personal resources you can find when there’s a lot on the line. But when you’ve got a job to do, it’s just not realistic to hold off taking meaningful action waiting for these wonderful insights and good feelings to materialize.

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the value of “failing fast” and encouraging risk taking. While taking this kind of advice to an extreme can lead to fool-hardy actions, there’s a kernel of truth there: You can see and know only so much standing still.

Chances are, in any given situation, you have some idea of the general direction for the action just in front of you. And getting some forward movement will put you in a position to get more new information about the situation and help you recalibrate and adjust accordingly. Here are three techniques to get you moving when you’re stuck:

• Organize the information you already have. You’ve got an important hiring decision to make. You just can’t make up your mind right now. Create a simple table so you can see at a glance the results you want from that position, alongside the skills and experience you believe each candidate brings.
• Start with a hypothetical after-action report. You’re struggling with preparation of a detailed plan at the front end of your project. You can’t face tackling the project management software just yet. Write a simple fictional narrative in the past tense about the project, how it started, the players, what you created, what you learned, the challenges you faced and what you did to meet them. It hasn’t really happened yet, so you can make it turn out any way you want it to.
• Switch perspectives with another player. You’re headed into a big meeting with a prospect. You can’t bring yourself to start writing your presentation. Switch to the point of view of the person you’re going to pitch to and make notes: “What do I want to hear from this person who wants to sell us this product or service?”

You can aspire to having enough knowledge and the right attitudes in place when making business decisions. But sometimes it just takes forward movement, and it’s good to have some go-to techniques handy to help you get going.