Don't Do It Yourself!

Talane’s Coaching Tip for the Week.


Don't Do It Yourself


My mother and father are big on do-it- yourself projects. I grew up eating my mom's home-grown canned veggies and home-made huckleberry jam. Mom sewed a lot of our clothes and cut our hair and dad did all the home improvements and fixed the cars. My dad's philosophy is that you can learn to do anything yourself and save the money on hiring incompetent help. By the age of 8 we were babysitting ourselves because our parents believed we were more sensible and competent than the irresponsible teenagers in the neighborhood.

As a result, I discovered the amazing power of hiring professionals rather late in life. It wasn't until I was twenty nine that I hired a house cleaner to come once a month to clean my tiny New York City apartment, which seemed the ultimate frivolity given it was only 500 square feet! But I loved coming home to a sparkling clean apartment and was soon hooked on hiring help. My next step was to hire a massage therapist and even my father would admit that you just can't massage your own back properly. Then I hired a professional image consultant who discarded my entire wardrobe and created a whole new look – very expensive initially, but I'm still wearing some of those great classic clothes years more than ten years later so an excellent investment in the long run.

Then, when I bought a tumbling down house in the Catskills, I had to hire help because I simply didn't have the skills required to rewire and re-plumb the place. But I still painted the entire place myself and glazed about 54 broken window panes with the help of my mother.

And people often ask me how I managed to write two books, renovate two houses and breastfeed two girls in a period of five years. This was thanks again to hiring help and also getting my own mother to help out for two months. You can get so much more accomplished if you focus your energy and time on your natural gifts (in my case, coaching, speaking and writing) and delegate as much as you possibly can to other professionals.

Perhaps because I know I could do it myself, if I really really wanted to, hiring help always feels like a real luxury, but in fact, it just makes sound economic sense. It doesn't always pay to learn how to do a job, buy the tools to do it properly when a professional can come in with years of experience, all the right tools and do an excellent job for you.

This holiday season, stop trying to do it all if you feel overwhelmed. Get in a cleaner to clean the house once a week, even if just to get you through the holidays in tact. Get a weekly massage to stay healthy and relieve holiday stress. And consider having your holiday dinner cooked by a local restaurant or going out to eat. If you love cooking for hordes of people, then carry on, but if not, why put yourself through all this stress?



Enjoy!



Warmest,

Talane





Talane Miedaner, MCC



Author of the international best seller, Coach Yourself to Success (McGraw-Hill, Jan 2000) and The Secret Laws of Attraction

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