Victims of Furgency (and How to Escape)

0:04 Welcome to Clear is the new Confident. I am Casey Watts, speaker, author and the host of this show. If you are a high achieving, driven woman who has ever replayed a conversation and 2nd guessed everything that you said, or found yourself saying yes to things that you later regret, or have held yourself back from making a bold decision because you didn't think you were credible enough, didn't have the authority, or weren't quite ready, this is the show for you. On this podcast, we are making space for confidence and it all starts with clarity. Clarity about who you want to be, clarity about how you want to show up, and clarity about what you want from both work and life.

0:49 Now, with all that said, let's dive into today's episode and make some space for confidence. Well, hey everybody, welcome to today's episode. It's, I'm not quite sure when you're listening to this, but at the time of this recording, it is at the beginning of July, No August, man, time flies when it also feels slow like July and beginning of August is typically slow for me. And it is the time when everyone else is going back to school. My kids have gone back to school and you know, because I am a business owner and I typically work with schools during the school year, July and August, I'm really just spending time coaching leaders virtually or coaching leaders in person and not spending a lot of time traveling. So as October, like September, October, November pick up, then I will be traveling more for business consulting, speaking all of those things.

2:00 And one of the things about being in business that I, I knew going into this, but also maybe I didn't, I didn't pay much attention to it before diving into having this business full time is that it can be somewhat lonely, right? Like if you go to work everyday, you, you are accustomed to going into your office or into your place of business and you are working with, collaborating with, having conversations with other people. And so I have made it a point so that I was less lonely, but also really productive and ensuring that I'm coming at my work in the best way possible.

2:45 I have made it a point to have regular meetings with colleagues who are in similar work or in a similar business. And one of the things that one of my colleagues and I did at the beginning of the summer is we had ACEO Power Hour. And we knew that was going to be for just a small stretch of time, like we were thinking 8 to 10 weeks. We're going to have CEO Power Hour every day from 8:00 to 8:30, Monday through Thursday. Fridays we won't meet. And of course, we won't meet if we had, if we're traveling or, or doing other things that keep us from meeting. And the purpose of this CEO Power Hour was really to talk to each other about what is your way of being today so that you're as productive as possible and accomplish the things that you say you want to accomplish. What are those things you want to accomplish? Like what are your commitments and what is your commitment before tomorrow?

3:41 And then the next day we'd meet together. Talk about wins, if we reached our commitments, etcetera. And it's so funny, my colleague and I who did this, her name is Becca Silver, she has the podcast The Whole Educator, and she just wrote and published the book The Resistant Solution. So be sure to check that out. But one of the things that we both are, I'm going to say, guilty of is having like getting to a point in these meetings we're talking about tomorrow's commitments. And we will list out so many things that we want to accomplish. Like it is actually maybe even impossible to accomplish the things that we say we want to accomplish.

4:28 We both are guilty of that. But here's what we're also guilty of. We are also guilty of having these ideas. Sometimes they can be spur of the moment ideas and suddenly we ruminate on the idea and we think, Oh my gosh, this idea has to happen right now. There is immediate urgency with it. And one of the times that this happened, I had to pause and I stepped back and I said, you know, what I noticed about myself is that I will come up with these ideas and think that it has to happen right now. Like, I have to expedite it and make it happen right now. And Becca, just what rolled off of her tongue next was the word fergency.

5:12 And I laughed a little bit and I said fergency. And she said, yeah, fake urgency. And I was like, Oh my gosh, yeah, It's so accurate. This urgency I have to get this idea up and running immediately is fake urgency. There's nothing urgent about it except that I have decided on my own that this is urgent and needs to be implemented right now. And I thought now is a good time of year to talk about for urgency because it can be hectic. You're getting maybe back into the swing of things. Maybe you have a little bit more creative energy this time of the year than you have over the summer. Maybe you're starting to find, especially if you are a leader of an organization, you're starting to find problems that need to be solved. And you know when Beck and I were talking about Fergency and now I refer to it as fergency, I, I call it out when I noticed it happening in myself and sometimes in others, especially if we have a close working relationship, but we jokingly call it fergency, fake urgency.

6:16 If you look that word up in the dictionary, you're not going to find a definition for the term fergency. If you type in fergency into a Google Chat, you are not Google Chat, but you know, Google search. You are going to see emergency rooms for pets, for urgency, for urgency care. Anyway, that's what I found when I searched the term on Google. There is actually more formal language to it and I want to take you to a, an article that I found on HBR, Harvard Business Review. It was written by Karen Walker and she refers to two different types types of urgency. One of the things that she mentions is in the title of the article, and I'll be sure to link this in the show notes. The title of the article is 3 questions to pressure test your priorities.

7:12 Now, she's coming at this through the lens of organizational leadership, and I want to come at it today from more of a personal individual lens. But I do want to mention a couple of things that she states in this article. And she refers to what we jokingly say is urgency. She refers to as ambient urgency. And I'm going to read to you the section that is the heading is when ambient urgency is the Norm. So here's what she says. Karen Walker says ambient urgency is the chronic low grade sense that everything is urgent, it has to keep moving and nothing can wait. Man, can you relate to that? I sure can't. She goes on to say unlike episodic urgency, which is short lived and eventually resolves with a solution, so urgency that comes with different episodes or different situations, ambient urgency does not let up.

8:05 It is a permanent invisible state running in the background. I want to read this last, this little, this next little section just because I feel like it's so applicable to a lot of you who are listening to this podcast. She says what makes ambient urgency particularly challenging is that it is self replicating it. Leaders get caught inside a system that creates constant pressure perpetuated but by unintentionally producing the same conditions for their teams to operate in. In other words, when you are experiencing ambient urgency, well, you are going to foster that in your culture. I want to go back to urgency.

8:48 So we can think of it as ambient urgency, this urgency that's living in the background and is self replicating. Or we can refer to it as fake urgency because most of the time, if we're experiencing what I'm describing to you that Becca and I experienced in our CEO Power Hour, it's not necessarily an ambient urgency. It's just kind of this irrational fake urgency that we're calling urgency. So I want to talk today in today's episode about a few things. I want to talk about why we experienced this fake urgency, like where does it come from? I want us to look at what's going to happen if we don't get ahead of it. I want us to talk about some different situations where we might notice this fake urgency.

9:36 And then finally, I want to think about, OK, well, if we notice ourselves experiencing this fake urgency, how do we get ahead of it? How do we get out of that? So the title of the episode is Victims of Urgency and How to Escape. So we're going to try to escape that. I'm going to tell you now, and I'm going to tell you at the end of this episode that what gets rehearsed gets repeated. So if you are caught up in the pattern of rehearsing fake urgency, it is going to become your norm. It will get repeated. All right. So why do we experience fake urgency, which might be referred to as irrational urgency?

10:18 Where does it come from? If we take a step back and we look at this from an eagle's eye perspective, we might notice that every time we're experiencing urgency, it's because we're masking something else. It can be a compensation mechanism. In fact, most of the time it is a compensation mechanism. So it it's because we're masking like or fighting for some sense of control because we lack a sense of control in some other area. In my brain certification program, this is the definition that is used for compensation strategies. Here's what what they say a strategy. So compensation is a strategy whereby 1 covers up either consciously or unconsciously, weaknesses, frustrations, desires, feelings of inadequacy or incompetence in one area of life through gratification of excellence in another area of life.

11:24 Right. In case you were curious, just in case it originates from the limbic lobe. So that's basically your emotional and survival command center. And when you are in a state of social threat, like you're feeling judged, excluded, or at risk of disapproval, it's originating from that limbic system. And what we want to try to do is fight combat that if we don't get ahead of it and we don't combat it, then what's going to happen is we're going to fall into a few different things. It could be that we fall into overwhelm. It could be that we fall into decision fatigue. And both of those are going to lead to potentially burnout. So I want to, I want to 1st talk about, since we have talked about where it comes from, where does it originate from? And I'm going to go back to this compensation mechanism is a cover up, right?

12:24 So when you are experiencing urgency, it could be a cover up for covering up like areas of weakness, frustrations, desires, feelings of inadequacy, etcetera. I want to I want to talk about what we can do about it and then explore what that looks like in a few different situations. OK. So if you're noticing urgency, first of all to decide for yourself, is this really urgent or is this actually fake urgency? Get ahead of it. Ask yourself, is this really urgent or is this just a sense of fake urgency? Now, if you are experiencing that or you know, just together others experience that, definitely bring them into the conversation. So I might even bring in a trusted colleague into the conversation.

13:09 Am I bringing my husband to the conversation? I bring a close friend into the conversation and say, here's what's going on. Does it seem as though I might be experiencing this fake urgency? Or does this seem real to you? OK. And then once we decide, like, is this really urgent? Yes or no, then we can ask why or why not. And I want you to consider what you know about the situation. What do you know about the situation? What do you know about the environment that you're in? What do you know about the people around you? What do you know about yourself and what could be driving the behaviors that are resulting from this fake urgency?

13:49 And what could be your potential limiting beliefs? As you guys know, and I have, I've said this already, I will continue to say it just so it's very clear. I am in the process of writing the second book clears the new confident, which a lot of the topics in the book are mirrored in this podcast, this being one of them. I had a book interview yesterday, so I'm interviewing lots of women across many different sectors and we talked about their journey to get to where they are. We talked about the legacy they want to leave behind. And then we talked about things like self guessed, self doubt, second guessing, people pleasing, high achievement, etcetera. And in an interview I had yesterday, the person we were talking about this urgency, sense of urgency for everything. And it's one of the things that led me to think, OK, now is the time for this episode.

14:48 But here's what she said. I grew up in a place where it was safe to just be busy with work. No one could bother you, yell at you, or get angry with you if you were busy working. And then we went on to talk about, well, it's also safe to be busy at work because then we don't have to take time to pause and think about what's really going on. Like, what is the deeper issue that I'm not addressing right now? So let me ask you a few questions to help you see or decide why you might be experiencing urgency.

15:35 Like why is it a compensation mechanism and what is it you're compensating for? Are you compensating with urgency because you feel inadequate in an underlying area? Are you compensating with urgency because you're avoiding a conflict or a problem that's more challenging? So in other words, I'm compensating with urgency in this one area because I could be really urgent about it. It's kind of easy to solve, and it helps me to avoid this other, more challenging problem. Or are you compensating with urgency because you're afraid people might find you out? This was another thing that came out of the book interview conversation yesterday.

16:17 I don't want people to find me out or notice that I'm not an expert, or notice that I'm not exceptional or notice that I'm not highly qualified. So what is the underlying cause for this compensation mechanism of urgency? And when you notice that reasoning behind this fake urgency, you can then decide, OK, now that I'm recognizing it, what's a healthy alternative? What's a healthy alternative? And sometimes that can depend entirely on the situation. So I want to talk about 3 different kinds of situations where we either see people experiencing fake urgency or we ourselves are experiencing fake urgency.

17:04 The first one is the fire extinguisher leader. OK. My husband and I have both worked for leaders like this. And it's funny because we were working for leaders like this at the same time, and we would share stories. And one day he said, yeah, it's like they set things on fire just so that they can put them out. And they're notorious for saying, oh, I'm just putting out fires all day long. And, you know, everything for these leaders tends to be urgent. And they place their focus on in energy, on things that might not impact the greater good.

17:50 So let's ask the question, why? What is it they could be masking? What could be some limiting beliefs or just just why? Why is this happening? So it could be that there are feelings of an adequacy. They might be afraid to address the deeper, more cultural problems because they don't want to come across as less than. Or they're limited. Limiting belief is that they are the ones that have to solve all of the problems. They're the ones that have to be in control or they are the the ones, the only ones that can, right. I'm certain you have seen or experienced this. You may even have been in this position before.

18:32 I know I have, especially when I felt inadequate at something. I decided, well, if I, if I, I'm inadequate in this, I can put out all of these other fires and seem really adequate outwardly. So what's the healthy art to alternative to that? One healthy alternative is to pivot and own it. So I'm going to own it and say I'm I know I'm putting out fires left and right. It seems to consume all of my time. I also know that I'm choosing to put out these fires instead of focusing on XYZ, whatever the other things might be. So then I'm going to ask myself this question like a coaching question.

19:13 Could it be that I need to better delegate to other people on my team and I need to spend time building clarity and confidence in this other area to solve these other more important problems? You're going to notice in the each of these different situations, the very first step is just becoming aware and digging deeper to ask yourself why. Why am I experiencing this for urgency? OK, so that's situation #1 where you've got the fire extinguisher leader and you're putting out all the fires and you're thinking about what could it mask? What can I do instead? The second situation, this one is very real for me, especially right now in writing this book. This is the high performing ideator, the high performing ideator.

20:04 So as I'm right and this is kind of what I mentioned earlier too, but in my CEO Power Hour. But I have this idea and I think it needs to be, it needs to happen like right now needs to be expedited. So I and maybe you 2 will create these very unrealistic timelines for myself or I will create this unnecessary pressure. Especially especially if I have already told some someone else about the idea or several someone's about this idea, then I'm imagining, Oh my gosh, I told them about this, they're thinking about this and and I need to follow through. But the reality is they're not thinking about this, not near as much as I am.

20:54 I am not. And this is not top of mind for anyone else except myself, right? So why am I experiencing Fergency with this? I've got a timeline back here on this whiteboard for when I want to have this book published, and I'm going to go ahead and let you know. I think it's completely unrealistic for me to reach this goal that I have for publishing this book by either April of 2027 or even July of 2027. But in my mind, it's like, well, that's that's what I've told people that that's when it's going to be published.

21:36 Yeah, a total of maybe 10 people who are going to come back and say, when did you want to publish this again? Because it's not top of mind for them. They're not near as invested as I am because this is my baby and my idea. Yes, it is for them. But there's this fake urgency I have behind it. Why? So this is my own little personal coaching session for myself. I'm going to get real vulnerable and real with you. I think for me, I could be masking some other chaotic feelings I have in other areas of my business in life right now. And if I can expedite this book timeline, it means that I don't have to pay attention as much attention to those areas. I also like the other areas of my business and life sometimes. A lot of the things there right now especially are very tedious things.

22:35 And I do not like tedious, detailed work, especially if it feels like something that is a checklist that I have to complete or a series of steps I have to take because someone else has told me I have to take those steps. If I can focus on the book and I say, Oh my gosh, well, I have to publish this book by this time, then it gives me an excuse to not focus on those other things. So what is the healthier alternative? Because clearly that is not healthy, The healthier alternative, that's hard to say. If you, if you put that together and you say it five times really fast. If you can do that, well, kudos to you, but I cannot. If I think about myself in particular, and this is just totally personal, a healthier alternative for me is structure and accountability.

23:27 I need a little more structure in my day-to-day and I need people to hold me accountable and say, yes, you have this book that you want to publish and no, it does not have to be published at this time. You have other things to do. What is your process for accomplishing these other tedious tasks that are important and need to be done even though you don't want to? OK, so that is the high performing ideator. You have this idea and you run after it and you expedite the timeline and think it has to be done today. The last one, number three, this is the last situation where you might experience urgency.

24:09 This is for the unrealistic. I was trying to figure out the word for this and I could not for the life of me pinpoint it. So I'm going to say that this is the overzealous, the overs. I'm just going to say overzealous person. This is the overzealous person. So you want some, it's very similar to what I just mentioned, but you want something done in an unrealistic time frame or to an unrealistic level. OK, so we've got to get these things done. It has to be done within this time frame and it has to be done at this level.

24:51 Here's the example. This is very home life based. If I have guests coming over, I might find myself suddenly wanting to overhaul the back porch in one day. So today is Thursday, I might have guests coming over Saturday. And I'm going to say to my husband tonight, hey, can we RIP up the back deck and replace it? I think we can get it done in one day. That would shouldn't be a problem. I'm not thinking about all of the things that would have to be done to prepare for this project. I just want to get it done before our guests come or I'm notorious for this for this other example.

25:38 I used to and I don't know why I still I still sometimes do this, but I used to, especially when I was a classroom teacher. The night before, like the next day of school, if I had like an event or something special was going on, I would think of an idea for an outfit and I might already have some pieces of the outfit, but I might need other pieces. And I would get so hyper focused on getting those pieces within hours that I would go to sleep thinking, OK, if I if I get up at 5 AMI can go to Walmart or wherever is open and maybe they'll have XY. I don't know, a scarf, a certain pair of shoes in this color, like a pair of shoes that are styled this certain way. I was just ridiculous.

26:30 That is fake urgency. So why? What could it be that we're masking when we notice ourselves experiencing urgency in that way? Most likely it. I want approval from others. I feel less if I don't do this thing or I'm thinking I'm going to be judged. What's the healthy alternative? Let's cut our losses and let's shift the narrative. We have to recognize this is unrealistic to complete. Cut the losses, unrealistic to complete. But here's what I can do that will make me feel proud or make me feel good about myself, etcetera.

27:16 And then I also want to start asking the questions to help me shift the narrative. Does what they think really matter that much in this situation? Like, is what they think about my back back deck really going to matter in the grand scheme of things? Are people really going to be looking at my outfit and making passing judgment on me because I don't have the right color scarf or the right style of shoes? Chances are they're not noticing it at all. So when I ask my the questions to shift the narrative there, that's my healthy alternative. OK, we're going to close up this episode.

27:56 I could go on about urgency, and that's exactly what I plan to do when I write about this in the book. Remember, urgency or fake urgency, or if you want to call it ambient urgency or rational urgency, in my opinion, is a choice. And as I've said in in this episode and other podcast episodes, what gets rehearsed gets repeated. So if you rehearse this pattern of urgency, it's going to get repeated and that's going to lead to burnout, overwhelm, decision fatigue, and the cycle of starting this process all over again. So I'm going to tell, I'm going to encourage you, challenge you to ask yourself these things, is this really urgent?

28:42 What do I know about the situation, like my environment, my past experiences, etc. And then decide what might be driving these behaviors or what could be some limiting beliefs that are present that are causing you to fall into urgency, and then choose a healthier alternative. We're going to compensate no matter what. It's just the way that our brains are wired. But we can compensate in healthy ways. OK, If you would like to know more about urgency or have strategies and tools for overcoming second guessing, I want you to go to the new, new website clearasthenewconfident.com and it's going to give you an option to input your e-mail address. You're going to get a thought interrupter tool for when you're second guessing and that will work well with urgency as well. Fake urgency.

29:39 OK guys, don't be victims to urgency. Escape it. We will catch you in next week's episode. Bye everybody. Hey listener, I am so honored that you listen to today's episode and I hope you gained something valuable from it. I'd also be honored if you did ME3 solid favors. First, subscribe to this show. I've got a lot of great content coming up, and I don't want you to miss any of it. Second, be sure you're following me on social media platforms. You can find me at. Catch up with Casey on LinkedIn or Instagram. And finally, if you were looking to book a dynamic and relatable speaker for your next event, conference, or retreat, I would love to bring a message about how the craft of clarity makes a significant impact on both leadership and life.