Professional Coaches: You Are Entering “Silly Season”
In the news world, "silly season" refers to the summer months when viewership drops off for news broadcasts or readership drops off for newspapers. There are a few reasons for this:
• Newsmakers (like politicians) are less frequently in session
• People are on vacation or, at least in a vacation mindset, perhaps filling their evenings with activities and sports in a way that they don't when the kids are in school. So they're less interested in the news but the news organizations still need to sell advertising to make money.
As a result, less relevant news tends to happen and stories, therefore, become "silly". (Issues might be blown out of proportion, for example, in order to increase an audience).
In sports, the silly season is the period when there aren't any games so sports news is filled with stories of trades and the personal lives of athletes.
Professional coaches have their own silly season and we are just about to enter it. It's the period of time between Thanksgiving and New Year when people put off decision-making.
Christmas – and the preparations leading up to it – can be a taxing time for many people and often other things get put on the back burner "until Christmas is over". This is true even for people who do not celebrate Christmas at all, since the period leading up to Christmas can be filled with holiday-related events and the week between Christmas and New Year is rarely a time that a lot of work gets done because of vacation days.
So, between buying the kids' stocking stuffers and trying to figure out what to bring to grandma's house for the traditional family dinner, your clients may be tempted to either put your coaching on hold or, at least, put a lot of decision-making off until January.
You need to stop them from doing this, of course. This action effectively cuts out one-twelfth of their year, diminishing the results of any coaching that has been done so far. And, it does not put them in good shape to start the New Year strong. If they wait until the New Year to make their 2010 plans, they won't be able to implement them until the middle (or even the end!) of January, cutting out another 2-4 weeks of potential results achievement.
If this has been a problem with your clients in the past, or if you think that your clients might delay coaching until after the Christmas season, start communicating with them now about the importance of maintaining momentum ESPECIALLY during the hectic season. Yes, you'll probably be willing to move a coaching date from December 24 to another day, but don't cancel it all together.
It's silly season for your clients… but it doesn't have to be.
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- Overcoming Procrastination: For You and Your Clients
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