How To Prepare For Critical Moments

Often when we’re just getting going on something new, we have a little bit of an identity crisis.

We’re used to thinking and feeling about ourselves in a certain way, and we think we know what we would or wouldn’t do in a given set of circumstances. But then, every so often, if we’re open to it, little things happen and a door opens.

A door to a new world.

A new opportunity.

A new adventure.

And if we’re alert and feeling bold, we’ll step through that door, and everything changes.

One such door appeared for me not long ago.

I rocked up at a coaching conference, mostly to hang out with a friend and to check out a restaurant she’d been raving about just down the road near Kings Cross in London. I wasn’t a coach. I had no intention of becoming a coach. But yet I found myself in a room full of around 200 coaches – all wanting to hear about marketing. (I was something of a web marketer at the time, so in the back of my mind I thought I may pick up a few extra clients, but I wasn’t holding out much hope.)

During one of the breaks I nipped to the bathroom, and whilst touching up my makeup, got chatting to a lady who was also there. She asked if she could borrow my lipstick, I obliged, and then went on my way. Little did I know, but she turned out to be the next speaker.

And during her talk she mentioned a couple of profile systems… one of which I later went on to write a book about. And what happened next really illustrates the idea of critical moments.

She asked if anyone in the audience was familiar with the two profile systems. And of course as you do when you’re engaged in the talk you nod and smile enthusiastically to let the speaker know she’s on the right track and you’re following. But she didn’t leave it there. And within moments she had invited me up onto the stage to give a “30 second overview” about the profiling system, off the cuff, to 200 coaches and trainers. Aggghhh!

Well, I did. And when I sat back down I was shaking, and my heart was in my throat. What just happened??!

She finished her talk, and I assumed that was that. We had another break and I though “I’ll go and get a drink of water and recoup”… as by that time I was parched (mostly from shock!)

But I never got as far as having a drink of water because before I could move from my seat I was surrounded by a crowd of people asking if I could come and speak at their event, and “did I do workshops?” and “would I be interested in appearing on their internet radio show?”…

What? Me? Did they have the right person? Were they joking?

It appeared not.

And this continued for the rest of the day at the event.

That moment that I barely remember between nodding in agreement with a speaker and agreeing to head up onto the stage turned out to be one of those doorways that allowed me to step from the world where I was web marketer waiting to figure out what I wanted to do, into a world where I was a speaker, with a crystal vision of the value I could deliver in that moment.

This is what is known as a critical moment.

But it didn’t end there. There were all these invitations being offered to speak and teach and coach… and since I hadn’t done any of that before I could just have said, no, I don’t do it. But instead, something within me just said, yes! Sure!

So here’s the lesson: when a door of opportunity opens, even though it may conflict with your current identity and even though it’s a bit scary if you stop and think – don’t! Instead step through that doorway and let your identity catch up with you.

So how do you prepare for moments like this. Moments which happen so quickly you bearly know they happened until you look back?

Well there are a few things you can do…

1. Look at times when you didn’t step up.

This will make you more aware, and more sensitive to those things that really do make the difference.  Don’t look back with the intention of beating yourself up. This isn’t to play the guilt game… it’s to play the learning game. You aim is to become more astute. To increase your awareness – kind of like how a striker on the football pitch has some awareness of where all the other players are on the pitch.

2. Now, without guilt, and beating yourself up, decide how you could have done it differently.

Look at what you did… (maybe stayed quiet, maybe waited too long, maybe said the wrong thing), and contemplate what you would have done differently.

I’ve had the privilege of working with and coaching a number of successful entrepreneurs, and one thing that they often say is that when things have gone wrong, after they had come to terms with it, they always spent a lot of time dissecting what happened and how they can avoid the same thing happening again in the future.

Without over-analysing – see if you can get to this awareness.

3. Have a “can do” attitude and awareness of new identities you can move into.

Before I became a coach, I had to see myself as a coach. Remember, even the most seasoned brain surgeon did his first procedure once!

4. Notice when critical moments are happening. Be aware at times they are likely to happen. They mostly happen around people: chance meetings, recommendations, discovering someone’s website… Get good at recognising these potential doorways to new opportunities so that when one show up, you just naturally step through.

And there we have it.

Stepping up to new things isn’t a matter of huge, incremental slog every time. Sometimes it takes a mind shift. Sometimes an opportunity. But always there is a tipping point – a critical moment where anything can change. Become a master of these critical moments, and give yourself permission to step through those fleetingly open doors!

 

Leave a comment and share some of your critical moments that you either stepped up to, or missed out on…