CHAPTER 1
Meet the Gopher
How often do you have the feeling that you have spent your whole day being busy, but at the end of the day, you seem to have achieved very little? You should have a great sense of satisfaction from having done loads, but instead you have the empty feeling that little or none of it has been worthwhile.
Worse still, you also realise there are other things that you haven’t achieved… and these are the ones you wish you’d had time to do. If you hadn’t been so busy, then maybe you could have done something more useful instead.
You have become a victim of the Gopher.
The Gopher will see an opportunity or think of something that needs to be done, and it will always ‘go for it’.
Where does the Gopher come from?
The Gopher is probably as old as humanity. It is wired into our unconscious and it is a response to fear. Our lives are full of opportunities to do things, requests for help, and jobs to be done. The natural thing to do when faced with this – your automatic reaction if you like – is to go for it. So, most of the time, you do… without even thinking.
But if you do pause for a moment and ask yourself ‘What if I don’t?’ then fear is often the answer. Fear that you will miss out, fear that you will disappoint someone, fear that you will suffer recriminations for not helping, fear that you will regret your decision in one way or another.
So, to protect you from all of this fear and angst, your unconscious will often just by-pass it and go straight to ‘yes’. That unconscious drive to say ‘yes’ and to go for it is your Gopher.
And it is getting worse. As far back as 1970, Alvin Toffler coined the term ‘overchoice’ to describe the surfeit of options we have. You would think that more choice is a good thing: more movies to see, more chocolate bars to try, more types of phone to buy. In fact, too many choices leave us fearful that we will make the wrong decision, leading us to less happiness, not more. This is what Barry Schwartz describes as ‘the paradox of choice’ in his book of the same name (HarperCollins, 2004). The paradox of choice is that the more choices we have, the less happy we are. More choices make decision-making harder and satisfaction with your decision lower.
What is the Gopher?
The Gopher is your unconscious drive to say ‘yes’ and to go for it. It arises from three urges.
- Autopilot: With lots of choices, there is too much demand on your conscious brain, so it settles into automatic responses. When you are asked for help or when you see a chance to do something, your first urge is to surrender your judgement to your autopilot and just go for it.
- Maximising: You want the best, you want the most and you don’t want to miss out. The only way to ensure you know what the best is, and that you don’t miss out, is to try everything. The urge to maximise your opportunities is a strong one because it often leads to you getting the best – but rarely to being happy. Striving to maximise means you may get more than me, but you may never get enough for you. Is there more? Just in case, you had better go for it.
- Pleasing: The need to please is embedded deeply in many of us, and this urge is more than willing to overcome your own happiness to do it. So, if I ask you for a favour, don’t disappoint me: just go for it.
Are you a Gopher, a Beaver or a Dormouse?
While a Gopher will go for it and dissipate its energy across a lot of tasks, its friend the Beaver will beaver away, investing all of its energy in a single all-important task, until it is finished. Let’s not forget the Dormouse. The Dormouse really can’t be bothered; it would rather do something altogether less taxing instead.
Try our short quiz and see how much inner Gopher you have.
ARE YOU A GOPHER, A BEAVER OR A DORMOUSE?
- The doorbell rings. It’s your neighbour, asking if you can come round and give them a hand with something.
- You’re busy and have a lot to get done today, but you offer to help out anyway.
- You are working on something important, so you apologise and ask if you can come round at the end of the day, when you’ll be finished.
- You’re not really doing very much, but you can’t be bothered, so you say you are busy and apologise for not being able to help.
- You look at your To Do list at the start of the morning and think about today…
- There’s a lot to do and you are going to be busy fitting it all in, and then you think of a couple more things to add to the list.
- You scan your list, to focus on one or two things that are important, and then you think about when you are going to work on them.
- You don’t like the look of that: best get a cup of coffee and check out your Facebook page or flick through the magazine on the shelf.
- It’s the weekend and there isn’t anything in your diary and there isn’t anything you need to do.
- Not to worry, you’ll find plenty of things to get on with – magazines to read, chores to do, jobs around the house, cleaning the car… Of course there are things you need to do.
- What a marvellous opportunity to dedicate some time to a project or hobby that is important to you.
- Aaahhh lovely! Someone put the kettle on for me.
- At the end of a typical working day you look back.
- You don’t feel as if you have been particularly effective – but at least you got loads done and everyone who asked for something got a response. If only you could have done that thing you planned to do by lunchtime. Never mind: tomorrow.
- You have made significant progress on the most important projects, and dealt effectively with the critical issues that cropped up.
- Hmmm. Perhaps you could have done more, but you don’t think anyone noticed.
- Think about all of the projects you have on at the moment.
- Wow! You have a lot of projects, all demanding your time. They all seem important, but how will you make progress with all of them?
- That’s just the right balance. A few well-chosen projects that you are fully committed to, and that will make a real difference.
- Lots of ideas but nothing much to show for them. You really must make a proper start with one or two projects.
- An article catches your attention and gives you a great idea for a new project.
- Great, you’ll get started on it straight away.
- You decide to think it through carefully and maybe talk to a couple of people before deciding how important your idea is.
- Maybe you are too busy at the moment. It doesn’t seem that good an idea. If it is, someone else can pick it up.
How did you answer those questions?
Most answers were a
Well, at least you have the right book in your hands: you’re a Gopher. Now, suppress your desire to skim this book and then move quickly on to something else. Read it carefully.
Most answers were b
Congratulations, you’re a Beaver. This book wasn’t written for you, but you saw it and decided that there is something in it for you, so you will probably make time to read it carefully and find the ideas that will make a difference.
Most answers were c
You don’t have trouble saying ‘no’: you’re a Dormouse. Your problem is saying ‘yes’. Perhaps you should skip straight to Chapter 5. Do it now. I know you’d rather switch on the TV, but this matters.
The advantages and disadvantages of being a Gopher
We all have a bit of Gopher in us, and that’s good. But too much Gopher behaviour can be a problem. Let’s look at what’s good and what’s bad about being a Gopher.
Gophers are generally productive and they seem to generate a lot of energy. But sometimes there is more heat than light: not only is their energy poorly focused, it isn’t always effective.
The problem with the Gopher is its tendency to rush in without thinking, often creating its own problems. There is nothing wrong with going for it – it is a commendable trait. What is important is knowing what to go for, and when to go for it.
Meet the family
The Gopher is not alone. There is a whole family of Gophers that each has its own motivations for behaving as it does. Let’s meet the family.
All of us can act in each of these ways at some time or other, but when you feel stressed or under pressure, one of them is likely to dominate. Which one you favour will probably depend on the choices and experiences you have had from your earliest days, as a child. This means that one of these Gophers may be more familiar to you than the others because it has been running your life from childhood.
Day-to-day, however, when you are not under particular pressure, you will experience each of these Gophers, as your attitudes to yourself (whether you feel good about yourself or not) and others (whether they seem OK to you or not) vary.
Eager Gopher
Eager Gophers feel good about themselves and they respect the people around them, so they are keen to get on with anything that they are asked to do. But they are Gophers, so they are rarely selective about what they take on. They feel as if it is only by going for it that they will retain the liking and trust of those other people.
Eager Gophers do not believe, deep down, that they are wholly OK. Rather, it feels that they will only be OK if they go for it. Eager Gophers go for it to make themselves feel OK, whether by pleasing the people around them, by meeting some internal standard of perfection, by showing how strong and capable they are, by continuing to try hard, or simply by hurrying up and getting on with it.
If, in the moment, you feel completely OK about yourself, you will have no trouble saying ‘no’, and letting your inner Beaver focus on what is really important.
Submissive Gopher
Submissive Gophers do not feel OK about themselves. Instead, they feel as if everyone else is stronger, more confident and more OK than they are. So they try to get away from that feeling by taking on tasks, which they hope will relieve the pressure that they feel to conform or to perform. They don’t feel good about going for it; in fact, it can be exhausting. But at least they can get away from the constant demands on them.
Submissive Gophers often miss out on the important opportunities in life. They feel others are more important, more deserving and just better than they are, so they adopt a kind of victimised helplessness – often declaring ‘Poor me – look at how much pressure you are putting me under.’
Ironically, by conforming to this mental script and going for whatever other people want of them, Submissive Gophers are reinforcing the harmful belief that others are better than they are. Until you confront your Submissive Gopher with the simple fact that you are every bit as good as anyone else – and have as much right as they do to make choices about your life – your Submissive Gopher will continue to make your life a misery.
Despairing Gopher
For Despairing Gophers, life can seem futile. It feels as if no one will help them, so they do things out of desperation, with no real hope that they will make any difference. They might as well go for it; there is nothing else they can do.
And often, Despairing Gophers will want to freeze and do nothing. They will then feel guilty about not doing anything, but will blame circumstances or others for putting them in that position.
Despairing Gophers will go through the motions, but feel as if they are getting nowhere with what they are doing. Each time they go for it, it will be ultimately futile, because there will just be more demands on them later; yet none of them will make any difference.
Despairing Gophers feel put-upon and unloved. Their sense of the world is totally distorted. If a Despairing Gopher is in charge of your life, you need to take on the two big issues that it presents you with: to believe in yourself, and to believe in others. The actions you take can make a difference to you and your world, because you have an important part to play in it. And other people have an important part to play in your life: they can help you and bring you pleasure.
Arrogant Gopher
Arrogant Gophers seem to be always looking for ways to put others down. Taking on tasks is one more way to demonstrate their superiority. They do so angrily. They resent the intrusion, and only accede to the task to get rid of the other person and to reinforce their belief that they can’t trust anybody else to do it properly and that the only solution is to do it yourself.
Arrogant Gophers are superficially in charge, but when you behave this way habitually, rather than on the odd occasion when you are highly stressed, you will start building up resentment from the people around you. Arrogant Gophers are neither liked nor respected by others.
Just as Submissive Gophers must learn to respect themselves, Arrogant Gophers must learn to respect other people and recognise that they are every bit as good, worthy and capable as they are.
Yes/No in an instant
The Gopher goes for this – goes for that. It gets loads done but rarely feels in control. There is a whole family of gophers eagerly, submissively, despairingly and arrogantly going for it without much thought for when it is right to say ‘yes’, and when it is right to say ‘no’.
| Yes/No: | Do you have an inner Gopher? |
| Yes/No: | Are you ready to bury it? |