Coaching for Leverage: Helping Clients to Manage Priorities, Time, Energy, and Resources

THIS EXAMPLE SEEMS EXTREME, yet many people who describe their commitments do so in the same kind of breathless rush, running through lists of “to do’s,” creating mental piles of commitments. As coaches, we meet people like this young woman frequently—high achievers who have gotten far in life by exceeding expectations. Eventually, they achieve a level of challenge that forces them to face up to the limitations of time, energy, and resources. Th ere are too many priorities. Everything is urgent. Nothing can be set aside or removed from the towering stack of “must-do’s.” At this point, an individual realizes that something is terribly wrong. “I can’t go on like this,” one of my clients said recently. “Even when I accomplish something important, there are three more things I haven’t gotten to. I need help sorting out my priorities and fi nding some work/life balance.”