Change of plans

How good are you at planning? And how well do you cope when there´s a change of plans?'

Tablet device showing a weekly planner page, and a hand holding an electronic pen, hovering over the screen

I don't usually take the time to plan things in great detail, but I do like having a broad idea of what I'll be doing on a particular day or week, so that I can "tick things off my list" and feel that I'm being useful. Well, unexpected things happened on both Saturday and Sunday this weekend that altered my plans as I went along.

OK, truth be told, at least one of those things was due to my own forgetfulness: I had agreed to meet some friends for lunch and a walk today, and I had completely forgotten, because I never added the event to my calendar. When I say calendar I mean Google Calendar, which in the last couple of years has become my best friend, I use it all the time, And I'm not sure whether I should be thankful or put the blame on it, because nowadays, if something is not on the calendar... It simply slips my mind, as it happened today.

Thankfully (and maybe thanks to telepathy), today I happened to check my phone at around the time we had agreed to meet, and thanks to seeing messages from my friends, I remembered and was able to join them. But on the other hand, several of the tasks I had lined up for this weekend ended up not being done, so I'm going to have to squeeze them into the next few days. What was of course not negotiable was this weekly post, which, once again and despite all my good intentions, I'm writing in the middle of the night 😀

Anyway, I could give you multiple explanations (a.k.a., excuses) of how those sudden events altered my plans, and how I wasn't able to achieve everything I wanted to get done... Or I could admit that the to-do list I had to begin with was not realistic for a single weekend, as it often happens to me.

And that reminds me of a quote I heard or read somewhere, years ago, which also came up the other day as I was talking to a friend: we human beings tend to overestimate what we can achieve in the short term, and in contrast, underestimate what we can achieve in the long term.

Now, researching this online, I found similar quotes attributed to both Bill Gates and Tony Robbins, referring to what one can achieve in one year as opposed to ten or twenty years... I'd say the same can also be applied to shorter timelines, like a week or two as opposed to a whole year.

And interestingly, I also found an equivalent law that's applied to technology, Amara's law, which postulates that "in most cases, human beings tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run".

So it's clear that, in general, estimating in the short term is not something we as people are good at, even if we think we are. And anyone who works in software development or any related field will be able to confirm how difficult it is to determine in advance the effort and duration of a certain task.

I believe this is also very relevant to any personal development or coaching process: quite often we define a goal for ourselves to achieve in a certain period of time, come up with an action plan that's too optimistic, and then feel down for not being able to stick to it, or for not achieving the goal as it was defined at the start. But all of that in reality is part of the process: the important thing is that thanks to the goal we get to make progress (even if it's not at the speed we would like), and we also get to learn, for everything that happens along the way are results that give us new information. And once we have that information, we can adjust the plan in order to achieve the goal, or sometimes we may realize that the goal itself is what needs to change.

Another well known quote, this time by Woody Allen, says: "if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans"; this resonates a lot with me, and I'm sure it will also resonate with many of you. So, knowing that this is how life works, let's enjoy making plans and finding out where they take us 🙂

Updating version history

If you´ve been following this blog for some time, you will have seen me using IT related concepts every now and then. This is partially due to my professional bias: it´s a world that I´m pretty familiar with, having studied Computer Engineering at college, and having worked for many years as a software developer and systems analyst.

But also, I believe that comparing the human mind with a computer (or a mobile phone, which is probably easier to understand) is a really useful metaphor, keeping in mind the differences, of course.

A couple of years ago I wrote a post talking about the concept of version history, which is used for applications and operating systems, and how it can be applied to people as a self reflection exercise that can turn out to be really interesting. It helps us to realize how much we have changed along the years, and above all and most importantly, it reminds us of everything we have achieved.

And the best part is that we can keep it up to date as we overcome new challenges and achieve new goals (my updated version history is available in the about page).

Today I´m adding a new version, one that I feel really proud of: during the past few months, I´ve been training in enneagram, a tool for studying human personality that I´ve found simply amazing; and one that´s been incredibly helpful in getting me to understand myself much better and begin to understand others as well. It´s a very interesting and practical tool, it fits well as a complement to other self-discovery and personal development disciplines, and it can also be applied to a workplace environment. What attracted me, in particular, was its potential in combination with coaching, to facilitate much more personalized coaching processes according to the client´s enneatype.

But please be mindful that it´s really important to learn the enneagram well, as unfortunately there´s a lot of confusion and misinformation on this topic, either due to not going beyond its most superficial aspects and only looking at external behaviours, or due to not fully understanding the key points that are characteristic of each enneatype. I myself spent two years wrongly identified, thinking I was of a certain enneatype when in reality it was a different one... And I´m not the only one, on the contrary, it´s a story that´s often repeated.

The idea of taking a shortcut in the form of a test that tells us our enneatype is very tempting, but at the end of the day, there´s no learning in that, we´ll end up with a number without really knowing what that means... As it always happens in the world of personal development, the learnings come gradually, along the way. And this is a piece of work that nobody can do for us. So if this has piqued your curiosity and you want to start learning about enneagram, I encourage you to search for materials from Alberto Peña Chavarino (in Spanish) or Mario Sikora (in English).

And if you decide to give the version history exercise a try, feel free to let me know how it went 🙂

Untranslatable sentences: getting out of your own way

Today we´re talking about another one of those expressions in English that I love, and that I think lose their charm when translated into Spanish.

Se trata de “getting out of your own way”, que básicamente quiere decir dejar de estorbarte a ti mismo, en el sentido de dejar de ser un obstáculo en tu propio camino. Yo cuando lo oigo, me imagino un camino delante de mí, con un pedrusco enorme en todo el medio, bloqueándolo… Y me doy cuenta de que muchas veces ese pedrusco lo pongo yo.

OK, it´s not always a gigantic boulder, sometimes it´s a smaller rock... But the thing is that I do it, I sabotage myself, and that´s something that happens quite frequently to us as humans.

Hoy mi hija Eva, que se está leyendo los libros de Harry Potter, ha mencionado a Dobby, el elfo doméstico. Si os acordáis, Dobby, cuando se daba cuenta de que había hecho algo que iba contra las normas, aunque fuera con la mejor intención, se decía “¡Dobby malo!” y se hacía daño a sí mismo, pegándose de cabezazos contra la pared y cosas así.

Well, I get the feeling that we humans do something similar sometimes, unconsciously of course. Our rational side establishes a goal or objective and wants to make progress in that direction, but it finds itself hindered (and sometimes, sabotaged) by an ever deeper side of ourselves, which somehow believes that achieving that goal would be against how things should be.

Por eso, cuando vemos que nos cuesta avanzar hacia la meta, que damos un paso para adelante y dos para atrás, es hora de empezar a escarbar para ver qué se esconde por debajo de ese autosabotaje: puede que haya creencias, valores, o incluso aspectos de nuestra propia identidad que estén entrando en conflicto con eso que aparentemente queremos conseguir. Ahí es donde un proceso de coaching puede ayudar un montón, para sacar a la luz esas “fuerzas ocultas” que nos hacen interponernos a nuestro propio éxito.

What about you? How are you getting in your own way, blocking your own path? And what would it take to remove those blockers?

New year´s... Resolutions or goals?

Today we´re starting a new year, happy 2023! 🙂

It´s usually the day when, after reviewing the year that´s just gone (and why not, thanking it for everything it brought to us, and what we learned from it), we begin to think about what we want to change or achieve from now on.

Scrabble letters forming the word "resolutions", and three blank post-it notes (pink, green and yellow)

Many people do this in the form of new year´s resolutions: cosas como hacer más ejercicio, alimentarse mejor, ahorrar… El problema es que si lo dejamos así, como una frase genérica, es muy difícil llevarla a la práctica de manera efectiva y duradera. Muchas veces se acaba convirtiendo en lo que en inglés se llama “wishful thinking”, desear que pase algo, y esperar que se cumpla como por arte de magia.

Let me propose to you two other options: one is choosing a new habit you want to establish, and another one is to set a goal or objective to achieve for yourself.

I hope to be able to talk more about habits in the near future: my reading list for this year includes the book Atomic habits, by James Clear 🙂

De metas y objetivos sí que puedo hablaros un poco más, porque son parte esencial de un proceso de coaching. En coaching trabajamos con el acrónimo SMART para definir objetivos. “Smart” es una palabra en inglés que significa “listo”, y cada letra del acrónimo nos da una característica para asegurar que el objetivo esté bien formulado:

  • S for Specific: the more specific, the better: what exactly do you want to achieve?
  • M for Measurable: how will you know that you have achieved it? What measure will you use?
  • A for Achievable: is it possible to achieve that goal?
  • R for Realistic: how realistic is this for you at this moment?
  • T for Time-bound: when do you want to achieve it by?

Existen algunas variaciones de este acrónimo, pero básicamente la idea es al misma: concretar lo más posible, “bajar a tierra” esas ideas tan generales y abstractas, para que no se quede todo en palabras bonitas que se lleva el viento.

And while we´re at it, why not making our goal even SMARTER, adding two more letters?

  • E for Ecological: I´m not referring to the Environment in general, but rather to the way your goal affects your personal environment in particular (your family, your work, your free time...) Who or what is going to be impacted by your decision of pursuing this goal? Is that impact going to be positive, or negative?
  • R for Reward: what´s going to be your reward once you achieve that goal? What do you want it for? What value is it going to bring to you? How are you going to feel?

I particularly love these last two letters, because they point out aspects that we don´t often think about. Ecological thinking reminds us that we´re not isolated individuals; on the contrary, we influence each other and our surroundings as well. Identifying any possible impact beforehand, especially if it´s negative, will allow us to reach out to whoever we need to and earn their support, so that we can make adjustments to make it easier to progress towards our goal.

And very often we get obsessed with achieving a certain goal or objective without really knowing what we want it for. The question here is not why - I´m sure we all have all kinds of reasons and justifications why it makes sense to go for whatever we want to achieve: going back to the examples I mentioned earlier, we know that a good diet and regular exercise are good for our health, we know we should have some emergency savings in case they´re ever needed, etc. etc. etc. That´s the theory, and we all know it very well, but that´s not enough.

The question is what for. What benefit are you going to get from this, once you´ve achieved it? What´s going to be your reward? It has to be something personal, something of value to you, something meaningful, because that´s the motivation that´s going to help you to hang in there when the initial excitement is gone and you still have a long way ahead of you. Could it be wearing that dress you like so much, the one you look so nice in, next summer? Maybe reaching your retirement age with enough agility to be able to play with your grandchildren? Or perhaps having saved enough to be able to finally go and visit the Taj Mahal?

Whatever it is, the good thing about goals and objectives is that they´re a lot more tangible than resolutions, so I encourage you, if you really want to make progress and get results this year, to use the SMARTER acronym to go wherever you decide. And if you´re not very sure how to define your own goal, or how to start working towards it, why not contacting a professional coach, who can walk alongside you?

Brand new website

Ladies and gentlemen, the moment has come…

BinaryWords is no longer just a blog, now it´s a full-blown website!

Purple banner with the BinaryWords logo and a number of electronic devices showing different images: colours, landscape, clock and calendar, yoga at sunset, hands making a heart shape, target circles

A new phase is now starting for me: the personal project I kicked off a little over a year is now also turning into a professional adventure, and I´m taking my first steps along this new path with a great deal of excitement (and a little bit of vertigo, as one would expect).

From now on, in addition to sharing my weekly thoughts, which I will of course continue to do, I´m offering you my services as a professional life coach . And soon you will start to see appearing on this website new content, workshops, and courses that will allow you to dig deeper into the art of reprogramming your life.

For the moment, I hope that what you see here resonates with you; feel free to explore the pages and articles already published and send me your feedback, so that I can continue to learn and improve. And as always, thanks a million for reading me, and keep an eye out for exciting news…