How can you tell when a recommended strategy will really work? – SCN Encourager

Just remember why the chicken crossed the road.

Take a look from “the other side.”

Yesterday I wrote about one of our major self-induced stressors.

And I hauled out some unnamed (er, uncompensated) experts to help us deal with it.

Apparently it’s common for us to believe that by shoehorning way-too-many items onto our calendars, we can have it all and do it all.

Because we’re nice people, we just can’t keep ourselves from saying “yes” to things more than we should.

We don’t want to disappoint anyone.

And in the end, we help everyone but ourselves.

This non-best practice is undoubtably a major cause of our inner stress and turmoil.

So the experts recommend we say “No for Now” in order to buy some time for us to think about how a “yes” answer might not be the best commitment to make in the long run..

At first, I wasn’t all that sure about their “No for Now” solution.

But in joining my chicken friends and looking at it from “the other side” – I see its full power.

What I mean is… that when you’re on the receiving end of a “No for Now” response, it’s tough to deal with.

That’s how powerful it is.

It puts you on your toes.

Say you’re asking voters to support a bond campaign or you’re trying to attract a fantastic candidate to a key position, the last thing you want to hear is “No for Now.”

It’s actually difficult to be the one who must promote the ACT NOW side of the equation.

While the person responding with “No for Now” is stalling and buying time, you must step in and inject a sense of urgency.

Not an easy assignment.

Our messages grounded in urgency often look like this:

•  It’s now or never.
•  It’s now or allow disaster.
•  It’s now or accept defeat.
•  It’s now or lose the opportunity.
•  It’s now or only let “the Joneses” have it.

You can see the corner every “No for Now” response paints us into.

We’re forced to become masters of contrast to work our way out.

It’s up to us to come up with all of the horrible alternatives and point them out.

This said, I’ll still keep my favorite and highly effective counter-tactic:

•  It’s now or I’ll make everyone around me totally miserable.

This one has proven tried and true since I was two.

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