Have you ever built a flat-packed-something?
IKEA furniture, maybe?
It’s not my favourite thing in the world to do, but before I lived with Kev who loves to do anything construction-based, I was a single parent for 10 years and then was 15 years with my ex-husband who absolutely hated to do anything with a tool kit, so if I’d wanted anything flat packed I’d had to construct it myself, and I’ve successfully completed several self assembly tasks in my life.
Hence, I wasn’t daunted by the thought of assembling the gift I’d bought for my granddaughter - a ride-on John Deer tractor and trailer.
Unlike Kev who tends to think instructions are provided for lighting the fire with, I value such guidance, and I did what I always do at the start of such projects - find the instructions first, then make sure I have all the bits I need and lay them out ready to assemble.
I also had a busy day of coaching that day, speaking to seven clients in total, and I thought I’d be able to do a little bit between each call and end up with a fully-constructed toy by the end of my working day.
When I purchased the tractor online, I read some reviews that the instructions were awful but I put that down to the fact that some people struggle with that kind of thing in general and I’d be fine.
I was wrong.
They were right.
The instructions were an unholy bag of sh*te.
You can probably zoom into the picture if you're interested. I get why there are no written instructions because they need to make it accessible to all languages, but the illustrations were dreadful - sometimes it was hard to tell if the picture was of a part, or someone’s finger, or someone had drawn a tiny penis on the page for a laugh!
Elements of the construction process were even more frustrating.
You had to hammer little rivet-things onto the end of narrow axles. I’d line the two things up and strike the hammer, and if you didn’t get it perfectly square the little rivet twats invariably pinged off into my dog, Eddie’s, face (he was helping for a while until the language got too much for him), or under the sofa.
Needless to say, I soon realised it wasn’t the kind of task I should be attempting between coaching calls. I’m quite a chilled-out person, but poor instructions are one of the only things that get me genuinely hacked off.
It was b*ggery-f***ery at its finest.
However, I’m pleased to report the tractor and trailer is now fully complete. It steers, its bucket goes up and down in the desired manner, and it’s even wrapped ready to take to the small person.
What’s the coaching lesson in this?
Well, this goes out particularly to the people who have just started my 90 day programme and are in the process of getting their goals set up.
The journal I provide gives lots of instructions, but sometimes it’ll feel hard because you don’t even have a picture of a tractor on a box to know what the end result should look like.
This is why we urge you to set goals that are measurable - something you can definitely say you’ve done or not done - not just vague goals like “Feel more in control at work”.
What you need are goals like, “Set up weekly meetings with (key person)”, and “Set aside 2 hours per day when I work uninterrupted”.
That’s the difference between giving yourself great instructions or drawing random pictures of hammers, bolts and tiny penises.