When we need to make changes in our lives we can sometimes find it difficult to motivate ourselves. This is often because we tend to focus on what we need to do to achieve the desired change rather than on the change itself. For example, if you want to lose weight, focusing on eating less and/or exercising may seem like a bind, something you are reluctant to engage in. However, if you focus on weight loss and the benefits it would bring, you are far more likely to feel motivated to make the changes. This may seem simple, obvious even, but that doesn’t alter the fact that so many people continue to focus on means rather than the ends and thereby demotivate themselves. The same logic applies to not only motivating ourselves but also to helping others to motivate themselves.

If you are not successful at an interview or a promotion panel you may feel so disappointed that you just want to put it behind you. You may feel too ‘raw’ to ask for constructive feedback, but it is well worth getting past this as that feedback could be extremely helpful in giving you guidance on how to learn from the experience and improve for next time. Without that guidance you may be making the same mistake next time and the time after that, which could be very destructive of your confidence and self-esteem. Learning from feedback is an important part of continuous professional development.

It can feel really good to be comfortable, to be out of danger, with no significant hassles at that particular time. So, it can be very appealing to enter what is often called the ‘comfort zone’. But, ironically, there are dangers involved in getting too comfortable, in being too keen to stay in that warm and cosy place. It can stop us learning; discourage us from being imaginative and creative and thereby block innovation; and at times it can also make us complacent. So, rather than get too used to our comfort zone, perhaps we should think of it as somewhere we return to as a safe haven after we have allowed ourselves to go beyond it and be a bit more adventurous in our dealings with the world. Too much of a good thing can be bad for you and comfort is something that can come under that heading too. If we never venture beyond our comfort zone, it becomes a cage rather than a home.

Values are, of course, a key factor when it comes to working with people. Values shape our (and other people’s) thoughts, feelings and actions. However, we have to be careful not to oversimplify the situation in relation to values; we should not allow them to become fixed and rigid and dogmatically apply them across the board when perhaps a more nuanced approach is called for. For example, there can be clashed between different sets of values that can be difficult to reconcile. Critically reflective practice means that we need to have a flexible approach to our knowledge base – and much the same can be said to apply to our value base. At one unhelpful extreme we have a lack of integrity by which I mean a significant gap between espoused values and actual actions taken. But at the other extreme we can have a dogmatic approach to values that does not do justice to the complexities involved. Critically reflective practice helps us to find the healthy balance between the two.

In many aspects of the people professions we are called upon to assess situations, weigh them up as part of making a decision as to how to deal with them. This is skilful work that can be helped by having a good working knowledge base around people (about motivation, for example). But what is not helpful is the tendency to rely on untested assumptions. At one extreme, this can amount to relying on stereotypes, crude caricatures that present a heavily distorted picture. But we can also encounter more subtle distortions, mainly based on the assumption that other people see the world the way we do. For example, something we see as simple and straightforward may be quite scary and disconcerting to someone else. It is therefore important that we make the effort to develop a more holistic picture, taking account of other people’s perspectives and checking things out where necessary rather than taking things for granted and potentially producing an inaccurate and unhelpful picture of the situation.

It is important not to feel under pressure to dance to someone else’s tune. For example, something seen as urgent by someone else does not necessarily mean you have to change your own priorities to accommodate it. This does not mean that we should not help people who need something doing urgently, but it does mean that the fact that something is urgent for somebody else should not be allowed to distort your own priorities. Sadly I have come across many situations where Person A has something urgent (but not especially important) that they want Person B to do and, when Person B does it, the result is that something much more important from Person B’s own to do list does not get done – often with more serious consequences than if Person A’s task had not been done. By all means take requests for urgent help seriously, but don’t make the mistake of assuming that you have to oblige if that means you are creating potentially worse problems than you are solving.

Over the years I have come across many decisions that have proven after the event to have been unwise of misguided. There is no single reason for this, but a common theme has been people making decisions without having the information they need. Often what happens is that there is pressure to make a decision quickly and this can lead people into moving forward with their plans too soon because key elements of information were not available at the time the decision was made. So, in making any decision we have to be clear about which is wiser: deciding now without that information and risking getting it wrong, or take the time to find out – thereby making a much sounder decision – but risking causing problems associated with the delay involved. Unless there are reasons why we need to make the decision very soon, it is generally wiser to get the information we need before deciding on our course of action.