Cheryl Stein on the Rise and Fall of the Superhero
By Cheryl SteinMonster's Personal Coach
I am often struck by the sheer number of clients that I see in my coaching practice who have lives that are packed with enormous responsibility.
These people are the ones in their families or circles of friends that everyone goes to for help. They have boundless energy to accomplish, to take care, and to provide. These people make busy people look lazy. They can go to work all day, take care of their parents, take care of their kids, do volunteer work, do 100 errands and still have time to fix the roof or bake a pie. What all these people have in common is that they have no clue how to ask for help and never seem to know how to say no. They are also pretty tricky to coach because if they have too little on their plates they get bored. I call these clients super heroes. They want to make everyone happy and save the world all at the same time.
How do you know if you are a superhero who needs help?
Every minute of your day is scheduled- and I mean every minute.
You seem to be taking care of lots of stuff for lots of other people.
You find yourself asking, “Why am I doing this?” more than three times a week.
You almost never say no.
You do everything yourself and have lots of trouble asking for help.
These people seek out coaching because after a while, even superheroes become over burdened. After a while, my superhero clients just can’t believe how much they have on their plates and need some help learning how to say no.
We will typically start working on putting some responsibility aside. There is always something that can be given up. The reason why people don’t think of it themselves is because they get very wrapped up in the enormity of their lives and just don’t have enough time to think about what can be changed.
Sometimes the thing that a person can give up is an actual task that they do and other times it is a way of behaving or reacting. Rest assured that there is always something that can be put on a shelf and relief can be found.
The next thing that we work on is the question of “what is too much?” Superheroes need to be busy and only feel good when they are making other people happy but everyone has a limit. This limit is the fine line between feeling good about helping others and feeling resentful that people ask too much of you. It’s okay to have a limit, the trick is teaching a superhero how to recognize their limit and to enforce the boundary once they do realize what is too much.
Superheroes need to learn how to take a couple of seconds to pause and think before they agree to something. Instead of saying yes right away, they can be taught to think, “Do I really want to do this?” before answering. They can also be taught to say, “I know I agreed to do this for you but right now it is just impossible for me to do because….”.
The last piece of the puzzle is helping a client learn how to delegate. One part of delegating is accepting the fact that someone else might not do something exactly how you do it. The other part of delegating is accepting that someone else might not do it as well as you. Superheroes are usually high achievers who also have a tendency to like perfection. They usually do everything themselves because it is just easier.
What I try to show them is that there is a lot of value in teaching those around you how to be helpful. You can focus your need for perfection on becoming the perfect teacher.
Cheryl Stein is an Associate Certified Coach and Principal at Stein Consulting & Coaching.