By Peggie Arvidson

Headlines can cause all kinds of heart ache for the modern human. The longer your headline, the more time you like to spend in your head. This is useful if you’re using that brainpower to determine the order of specific steps for a particular project – let’s say – launching your new group coaching program. This is NOT so useful for trying to determine what your new group coaching program should focus on.

Headlines don’t necessarily like to be tied down to a particular focus.

This is because, much like the ego, the headline thinks it runs the show when it comes to your life.

It does not.

Your inner being, what I often refer to as soul runs the show while you show up here on Earth in your body suit.  Your inner being doesn’t really give a hot damn whether or not you ever launch a group coaching program, or what it’s about. Your inner being is funny like that. Still, it’s willing to go along to get along and often that means following the whims of your headline.

I realize I’m making it sound like your headline is running the show and that you somehow have the ability to change your headline. So let me specify a few things. 1) your headline can change over the duration of your life if you put concerted effort into the way you use and implement your brain. 2) Your headline has gotten where it is today because of the way you’ve been using and feeling about your brain and processing capabilities. 3) There is no such thing as a good headline or a bad headline – they simply are, what they are. 4) The point is to learn how to use the power of your particular headline for good.

To make it a little more clear, here’s a picture of a headline.

INSERT IMAGE HERE

The headline begins between the thumb and first finger. In this photo it ends in two spots where the red arrows are on the outer edge of the hand.

This photo only shows you where a headline starts and can stop. Yours will be different.

Let’s get back to the point, people with long headlines spend a great deal of time in their heads.

This means if you have a long headline you may:

• Find yourself at the mercy of analysis paralysis in one or more areas of your life. This drives the people around you nuts and causes you to simultaneously feel guilty for making them upset and beat yourself up for not being able to “pull the trigger” and take action.
• Spend a great deal of your energy each day thinking about (or talking other people about) challenges and problems and how you’d fix them. The biggest problems with this habit is that most of the time the issue you’re discussing has little to nothing to do with you and even if it does, you never go further than the thinking stage to take action. Then you beat yourself up for not being able to make a difference.
• Be unable to get a good-night’s rest because your mind is constantly processing information.
• Run the gamut from feeling frustrated and curious when you see people launching programs and services that you’ve been thinking about for years. You might even start perseverating about whether or not they’ve stolen your idea.
• Feel like an entrepreneurial failure because none of your ideas have ever gotten traction. It can be really difficult to make ends meet.
• Have certification-itis – the disease that makes you think that you need one more degree, certification or class before you can: get promoted; leave your current job to start your own business; raise your rates; etc.

These are just a few of the very real headaches for people with long headlines.

If you’ve got one of these long headlines, I’ll bet you’d like a quick fix, wouldn’t you?

But even if I told you about one, you’d do more research, and try a number of different approaches and then decide that you aren’t ready to commit to any of them.

That may have been a bit mean, but as the owner of a pair of long headlines myself, it also made me laugh.

Long headlines are GOOD for a number of things. The key is to focus on those places in your life where data and systems are useful and put your headline to work there. That means commit to a course of action. Decide to launch that new group coaching program – set a date and a topic and then use your headline to organize the course materials and systematize the launch calendar!

You are not doomed to sleepless nights if you have a long headline, you simply want to tap into the best ways to let it work for your inner being.