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My wife and I often marvel at the lengths to which our 10-year old twin daughters will go to avoid doing their chores. Make your bed. Unpack your lunch box. Set the table. There’s consistent resistance.
But when I really think about it, this isn’t the least bit surprising. I’m 48-years old, and there’s plenty of work that I resist doing, even though I know deep down that I shouldn’t.
What about you? What is the work you are resisting, avoiding, delaying? Take stock, because the outcomes we seek are almost always on the other side of actually doing this work.
Doing vs. Planning
When a kid doesn’t want to do something, they simply resist—often throwing a fit in the process. As adults, we employ more subtle tactics for avoidance. We construct, as author Jon Acuff puts it, “noble obstacles”—proxies for actual progress. For example, when it comes to business development, we spend hours planning but never seem to get around to doing. The process of planning feels like progress. But the whole point of planning is to do, so if we never take any tangible action then planning is just another noble obstacle.
Another way to describe this is never getting past the “Resistance,” which Steven Pressfield discusses in his book The War of Art. As Pressfield writes, “Don’t prepare. Begin. Our enemy is not lack of preparation. The enemy is Resistance, our chattering brain producing excuses. Start before you are ready.”
As a lawyer, this may sound like a scary proposition, because the stakes are high with your legal work, and you have to get it right. But you can let go of those extremely high standards a bit when it comes to business development, because the consequences of doing it “wrong”—namely, rejection—aren’t nearly as severe. In fact, with business development, doing it “wrong” is almost always a prerequisite for doing it right.
What I mean when I say “wrong” is that, inevitably, the actions you take early on in your business development journey will almost certainly be highly imperfect. Your elevator speech will be clunky. Your target audience will be too broadly defined. You won’t be adept at transitioning casual conversations with contacts toward new business opportunities. But with each repetition you’ll improve and refine your approach.
If you wait until you feel completely comfortable and ready, you’ll find yourself perpetually procrastinating. Another quote from Pressfield is instructive here (just substitute “build my practice” for “write my symphony”): “Procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it’s the easiest to rationalize. We don’t tell ourselves, ‘I’m never going to write my symphony.’ Instead we say, ‘I am going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.’”
Here’s how to think about the difference between planning vs. doing:
Planning to Do Business Development
- Scheduling time to do business development
- Reading about business development
- Talking about doing business development
- Making a to-do list about business development
Doing Business Development
- Calling a client you haven't heard from in a while
- Sending clients an email with three bullet points identifying risks/opportunities for 2024
- Attending a networking event hosted by an industry association
- Working collaboratively with a colleague to pursue cross-selling opportunities
Do the Hard Things
Don’t avoid the doing—that’s where the magic is.
Don’t get stuck trying to pick the perfect thing to do. Instead, go through a rapid series of actions and iterations to find what works best for you. Yes, this will be hard. But everything worth doing is hard—and, ultimately, that’s what makes building a practice so satisfying.
Jay Harrington is president of our agency, a published author, and nationally-recognized expert in thought-leadership marketing.
From strategic planning to writing, podcasting, video marketing, and design, Jay and his team help lawyers and law firms turn expertise into thought leadership, and thought leadership into new business. Get in touch to learn more about the consulting and coaching services we provide. You can reach Jay at jay@hcommunications.biz.