NO PREP TALK DEEPER DIVE
I think we have to look more closely at each, so we can make sure we KNOW what is going on, because then we can STOP it! Or at least begin the process of doing the DIFFERENT. Lets start with:
NO prep talk.
MANY folks believe that they do NOTHING by way of prep. They just don’t “think” that much about stuff. These same folks often will say they have NO expectations, NO forethoughts at all. That they wake up with no real thoughts about the day, positive or negative. Ok, I get this. NOT everyone THINKS so much. If that’s true for you, it’s fine. At least it’s fine when there is no “thing” that you need to do well, or that you want to have a positive impact on. IT’s fine if you find your interactions are going well and this lack of advance prep isn’t causing you issues. If it aint broke, don’t fix it!
I also know sometimes things happen that mean we just couldn’t prep for even if we wanted to! Things like:
- Called in to a last-minute meeting (no advance warning at ALL)
- Having a surprise interaction (see someone unexpectedly)
- Someone is home early or at when we didn’t think they would be.
You get the idea, these things happen and we end up needing to THINK on our feet! Not a whole lot we CAN do in advance, because we didn’t know it coming! I would still argue OTHER prep talks we CAN have will be helpful here, they can still guide us, even on the spur of the moment stuff!
I also find there are some NOT great reasons we have “no prep talks” namely:
- I don’t have TIME to do this! I’m TOO BUSY running from one thing to the next with NO time between to even THINK of prepping for what comes next!
- It’s not my “personality” to think about things in advance
- Avoidance: we didn’t WANT to think about whatever, so didn’t!
- Denial: the prep talk happens so far under the surface that we don’t really SEE it, or we just DENY that it is there at all.
No time: this one looks like this: we RUN from one thing to the next NEVER feeling like there is ANY time just to get what needs to be done, done. So advance prep sounds like it just add MORE to an already busy schedule! Ok, so I GET this one! BUSY is a thing, but GOOD prep talks do NOT take long, and they actually can make us more efficient and BETTER at what we DO. So, adding them in might FEEL like MORE, but in the end it will actually HELP us feel like we are getting things done, better, faster and with less drama!
Examples:
We are running to pick up the kids barely going to make it there on time. So we don’t even THINK about the fact that the teacher wanted to talk, so don’t prep for it. Then are blindsided by it and maybe even react badly!
Or
We RUN it to the house at the end of a long day. We were SO busy all day we forget that we needed to talk to our spouse/SO about the weekend plans/some issue. So, we are NOT prepared and either do not HAVE that talk, or it doesn’t tend to go well.
My personality: Maybe we feel overwhelmed, incompetent, or just dont BELIEVE we CAN do these well, so we dont’ even try. Maybe we are just someone who isn’t very aware of what is going on with our internal dialog. Maybe we just don’t see is as something we “can” do. I am here to tell you, you CAN. No, you don’t have to do it all the time, nor would I suggest it, but doing SOME prep talks, for the important things especially, IS DOABLE. If it’s not “in your nature” sure it will take more practice to get good at it, but it can be done! Tough thing about this one, is we end up feeling as though we CANNOT influence what happens next, that its’ not “in us” to have ANY Power over that first five, so we DO NOT DO ANYTHING that might GIVE us some power over that first five! And it becomes a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy! What we believe to be true (especially about ourselves) tends to become true!
Examples:
Talking to Y (teacher, spouse, so, whoever) is going to be tough and I don’t do TOUGH well. We may believe the internal talk that says: ” NOTHING I can do about that so I just won’t THINK about it until it happens!” Then when it happens we are ILL PREPARED and it likely goes LESS well than it could have
Or
Talk to Y: we feel as though on some level it doesn’t “matter” if we prep, we are going to not do it well, or we are helpless or or or. Fill in the self defeating thought that resonates with you. Then from there we act that way, like we don’t have the capacity to do things “well” and guess what? Then we don’t DO THEM WELL, or at least not as well as we could. THEN we say “SEEEEE IT I can’t do it well!” But, you didn’t even TRY, so MAYBE you could have!
Avoidance: Ahh, yes our good friend avoidance! What we don’t THINK about can’t hurt us! If we don’t “go there” maybe we’ll NEVER have to go there! Or we simply don’t want to address the transition/interaction etc… so put it out of our minds. We want to believe if’s not a big thing, so we pretend it isn’t. We believe that addressing things in advance (esp tougher things) will just mean MORE TOUGH TIIMES! Nope! Avoiding thinking about what comes next does MORE OFTEN makes what comes next WORSE. Sure, we don’t want to OBSESS about what is next, but GOOD prep talks keep us from doing that. AND they make it MORE likely the thing we are avoiding goes better than it would have otherwise!
Examples:
That teacher that needs to talk to us, we just don’t THINK about it. Then we are unprepared for it, and don’t know what to ask or what to say. We are less likely to hear what they are saying because we are busy NOW thinking about what we want to say, when we COULD have done that in advance! The talk goes less well than it could have!
Or
Talk with honey: we are ill prepared and feel blindsided, which is usually irritating. SO we respond from that irritated place, and we KNOW how that ends up!
DENIAL: Yeah. This one is tough because we simply often not even aware we are DOING THIS. Could be as simple as a lack of awareness (not a crime, and not uncommon) of what we ARE thinking.
OR we DENY we are even doing ANY prior thinking, we deny we have ANY prep talk at all. This is different than not having them, this is us sort of us actively DENYING that we have them, which we must be or there’d be nothing to deny! This is a bit of a crappy prep talk of sorts, but more on that later.
Example:
Teacher talk: it probably won’t even happen. It is probably nothing. I just didn’t THINK about it! Not a good place to start a talk!
Or
Talk with honey: it isn’t a THING or it probably won’t even happen or I just am NOT thinking about it! THen we don’t, and maybe THEY did and we are NOT ready when they want to talk!
Either way, denying something is not our friend, and usually ends up with the conversation/interaction going less well than it could have. Even “I don’t want to think about it” IS a prep talk of sorts. And I can be sort of down low in our subconscious, so far under the surface that we really don’t SEE it.
Maybe we simply do not WANT to prep because, well we just don’t WANT TO! You know what I’m talking about. There are MANY many reasons we don’t want to DO things, so, we don’t. This isn’t even a bad thing, sometimes. Clearly we don’t want do a prep talk on EVERY transition, nor do we need to! It would be exhausting! The trick is, we want to CHOOSE when we do them, and when we do NOT.
So, if any of these NO PREP TALK deals sounds like you (and we ALL do some of these at least sometimes) then you are NOT alone. We are all guilty of each of these! Just how humans are!
To give you some incentive on doing this different, think back to a time you COULD have, or wish you WOULD have focused on the Prep Talk piece (thought about something in advance of it happening, maybe even made a bit of a plan for it) and DID NOT.
Now think of how that worked out for you.
I’m a realist, so I’m sure you can think of some times where it just didn’t matter. I am equally sure you can think of some First Fives that were HEAVILY and NEGATIVELY influenced by the LACK of a “Prep Talk” where you wished you HAD done, well, different.
I’m not going to say, “if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail” because who quotes Ben Franklin!?!?
I guess I do 😊
Ok, I KNOW, even this isn’t always true. In fact, for many of our transitions/events/interactions we may not NEED to do a Prep Talk, it may be overkill or frankly we just aren’t in the mood. It is FINE to be human, to not ALWAYS focus on Prepping for the First Five. So, sorry Ben, I do believe that there are times we do NOT plan, and we do NOT fail!
I would argue, however, it is MORE likely we will succeed if we DO actively engage and focus on our Prep Talk (especially around more important First Fives), than if we don’t. Unless it is a CRAPPY prep talk. More on those next!
For now. The tool regarding NO PREP TALKS
Sorry, you are going to hate me for a minute!
PAUSE, it only takes a BEAT (less than a min usually) to say to yourself:
- What is coming next?
2. Rate it: on a scale of 0-10 how KEY is it that I am ready for this event/transition etc… (0, not at all 10 a LOT)
3. 0-5 no worried, No Prep needed (could still benefit, but not needed)
4. 5-10: Some prep talk will HELP YOU. Will make a difference in how things go next. The higher the number, the MORE time you’ll want to spend on the prep.
5. DO a Prep Talk!
INCENTIVE: the REASON for a Prep Talk is so that the First Five minutes of the event/transition/talk etc GOES BETTER!
Ok, so on number 5. We don’t want to do just ANY Prep talk. WE want to avoid a CRAPPY one and shoot for a HAPPY one. The next post will focus on CRAPPY, so we can avoid them. Then the one after that will focus on HAPPY!!!
I hope you’ll read on to get the full value of the tool! But, even if you just start with this, with PAUSING to SEE if you WANT/NEED to do a prep talk, I think your First Fives will benefit!
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