{"id":79,"date":"2008-09-15T15:10:04","date_gmt":"2008-09-15T20:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/?p=76"},"modified":"2016-01-04T10:54:49","modified_gmt":"2016-01-04T15:54:49","slug":"moving-from-wishing-to-doing-5-keys-to-getting-things-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/79\/moving-from-wishing-to-doing-5-keys-to-getting-things-done","title":{"rendered":"STEAM Training: Moving from “Wishing” to “Doing” to Get More Things Done"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m often told that people fall into 2 categories: “wishers” and “doers.”\u00a0 Individuals who tell me this are often surprised to hear my response: that my experience and research indicates that this is almost always absolutely untrue!\u00a0 My conclusion may seem counter-intuitive at first, but I recently conducted a scientific study on this topic and found some very interesting results that might be helpful to both your business and your personal life.<\/p>\n

My team and I spent about 2 years researching the difference between wishing and doing.\u00a0 During our investigation, it became apparent that no one is either a doer or a wisher.\u00a0 During the course of almost every day, all of us do some things we want to do and all of us also spend some time simply wishing we could do other things.\u00a0\u00a0 Even if it is only eating when hungry or using the restroom when necessary, everyone does something on a regular basis.\u00a0 On the other hand, we did not encounter one person who did not have something that they wished they did more often; some wished they were more efficient at work or that they were better at doing things related to leadership excellence; others wished they exercised more or\u00a0spent more time with loved ones.<\/p>\n

It quickly became apparent that, since it seems that we all do and<\/em> wish (without doing) from time to time,\u00a0the trick is not to stop being “just a wisher” and become a “doer.”\u00a0 Instead, it may make more sense to (a) identify the factors that influence us to do the things we want to do more often, then (b) become more skilled at putting these factors to work for us (and others in our lives) on a daily basis.\u00a0 At the end of our 2 year-long study, we feel as though we were able to shed some light on how to do this.\u00a0 Five factors that we found to strongly differentiate between wishing and doing (i.e., social support, time perception, enjoyment, accessibility, and motivation, or “STEAM”) are listed below, along with brief explanations of these factors and links to some thoughts on how to “STEAM Train” to get more things done:<\/p>\n

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  1. Social support for\u00a0consistently doing what we wish to do.<\/strong> <\/strong>The more that the important people in our lives encourage us to do what we wish in effective ways, the more we tend to do. On the other hand, we tend to wish more and do less if these individuals are not supportive of our doing (or if they provide ineffective support).\u00a0 A key here is becoming aware of the different types of social support and how to consistently recruit our favorite kinds of support into our lives (and minimizing our time with those who do not provide us with our favorite types of support).\u00a0 Click here for ideas on how to increase social support<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. Time perception for what we wish to do.<\/strong> We tend to only attempt to do what we believe we have time to do — and find all kinds of ways to avoid what we do not think we will have time to do.\u00a0 Ironically, many people that we have worked with over the years report that (after a careful analysis of their values and where they spend their time) they often find between 20-40 hours every week that they could have used to do more of what they wanted to do.\u00a0 Clearly, perception <\/em>of time availability is not always reality<\/em>.\u00a0 Many of us have much more time than we perceive to do what we wish if we are willing to stop doing certain things we do not want to do as much!\u00a0 Doing fewer less important things can increase our time perception for more important activities.\u00a0 Click here for ideas on how to increase time perception<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  3. Enjoyment of the process (not just the outcome) of doing what we wish to do.<\/strong> Doing is often linked with a certain level of enjoyment for getting the small things on the path to achievement done, while wishing is often associated with dreading these small things (and wishing that they were already done for us and\/or that we did not have to do them to get what we want).\u00a0 Many people are surprised to find out that enjoyment is often more under their control than they realize; many activities can be enjoyed more by putting enjoyment-enhancing mechanisms into play.\u00a0 For example, the book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience<\/em><\/a> is an excellent resource for some ideas on how to enjoy activities more.\u00a0 Click here for ideas on how to increase enjoyment<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  4. Accessibility to necessary materials and training.<\/strong> Wishing is also often associated with having less access to information and materials related to activities we wish we would do than one has for the activities that tend to get done in our lives.\u00a0 People who become more skilled at attaining these resources (rather than simply wishing they had them or that someone else would provide them) often find themselves moving from wishing to doing more and more frequently.\u00a0 Click here for ideas on how to increase accessibility<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  5. Motivation to do what we wish to do.<\/strong> Wishing without doing is often associated with an inability to perceive powerful pay-offs for doing certain things on a consistent basis.\u00a0 When individuals are trained in the art of internalizing more of their motivation, they often find themselves actually doing many more things than they used to only wish they could do.\u00a0 This is because we are typically more in control of our internal motivation; if we depend completely on outside influences to motivate us, we are often less in control of our doing.\u00a0 An over-dependence on external motivation can leave people in a state of “wishing” that someone else would come to motivate\u00a0them to “do” more.\u00a0 Click here for ideas on how to increase motivation<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    IMPORTANT UPDATE:<\/strong> Since completing this research, we have moved on to investigating Wishing Vs. Doing at a team and organizational level.\u00a0 To be a part of this research\u00a0 (and to find out what frequently blocks teams from crossing the “Wishing-Doing Gap”), click here and fill out our f<\/em><\/strong>ree <\/em><\/strong>7-item Execution Excellence Audit<\/em><\/strong>.<\/a><\/p>\n

    I hope this article was interesting to you.\u00a0 If it was, please feel free to leave a comment below this article or forward it along to others who may find it of use.\u00a0 I look forward to hearing from you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’m often told that people fall into 2 categories: “wishers” and “doers.” Individuals who tell me this are often surprised to hear my response: that my experience and research indicates that this is almost always absolutely untrue! My conclusion may seem counter-intuitive at first, but I recently conducted a scientific study on this topic and found some very interesting results that might be helpful to both your business and your personal life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":341,"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions\/341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.excellenceuniversity.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}