Throwing Spanners to Help the Works: Part 3 – Next Steps

Don’t think – Just Do

Fans of Aussie Rules might be familiar with the famous “Don’t think – just do something!” speech delivered by the late Hawthorn legend, John Kennedy senior to his players.  Tigers fans are no doubt pretty happy about what their team did on Saturday night!

I reckon it’s a mantra that bears relevance when we’re trying to support someone who’s caught in a place of victimhood.  A place we can become stuck.

In my last post I suggested throwing a ‘What does better look like spanner?’ in the works to help a person pull themselves out of the glue pot of victimhood.

But what about when they get out?  How do we get them to do something?  I’d suggest using a companion spanner.  It’s called ‘Next steps’. And it’s easy to use.

So you’ve got them out of their emotions to think about a better situation.  Your job now is to keep them thinking.

Some simple follow up questions can achieve this.  

“What’s the single most important thing you should do in the next 24 hours?”;  “Of the options you’ve come up with, which one should you do first?;  “What’s one thing you could do to make the situation just a bit better?”

Notice the focus here is all about little steps.  Little steps, one at a time.  

If the person feels their current situation is a 2/10, don’t focus on what an 8 or 9 looks like.  That’s like saying they need to look to the top floor of the Empire State building.  Daunting.

“What’s one thing you could do now to shift the situation from a 2 to a 2.5?” is the type of mindset you need when using the ‘Next Steps’ spanner. 

Martin Luther King is reported to have once said, “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” I wonder if he owned a ‘Next steps’ spanner?