You’re tooling along, writing your book or making your art. The next thing you know, you’re a victim of OPA – Other People’s Agenda.
OPA shows up in the following ways:
- emails
- social media links
- requests
- phone calls
- brainstorming that has nothing to do with your focus
- opportunities
- friends and family’s ideas of who, how and what you should be
Often, OPA is disguised as opportunities. Offers for you, invitations to speak or write for others. Sounds great, right?
Are you tethered to OPA?
But these opportunities can pull us away from our own agenda. Away from the things we write, the programs we develop, the art we make. Remember, not every opportunity is your opportunity.
OPA can seem harmless enough. But as our attention gets more dissipated, our time becomes more valuable. Our ability to focus is one of the main factors that contributes to our success. I work on this all the time with my clients – how to stay focused on their agenda over the long haul.
How to fend off OPA
I’m not advising you to shut yourself in a cave and ignore the world. OPA can be incredibly enriching. Unexpected possibilities, new insights, new friends and colleagues all come from OPA.
Living at the mercy of OPA dissipates our already-scattered focus. It prevents us from doing our best work.
This is a complex issue. We don’t want to create rigid rules that shut us away from the world. We do want to maintain our focus and stay in relationship with the world.
My focus became much easier to hold when I drafted some policies around requests. These policies clarified my focus and reduced the amount of time I spent responding to OPA.
I recommend developing some boundaries so OPA doesn’t override your agenda. Some include:
- Clear agenda for the year, quarter, month, day
- Timed social media and online wandering sessions
- Focused, offline creating sessions
- Written policies to easily respond to requests
Take stock of the kinds of OPA that regularly show up in your life. For each kind of OPA, write a strategy for managing it.
What helps you avoid being a victim of OPA? Please share your thoughts below. This is a topic I think we all need help with, so your input is appreciated.
Another name for this: Shiny Thing Syndrome.
-Clear agenda for the year, quarter, month, day
-Timed social media and online wandering sessions
-Focused, offline creating sessions
-Written policies to easily respond to requests
I would add one more to the great list (at least for me!): Clear line up with your ultimate goals. Sometimes, having the agenda, timed sessions, focus offline, and written policies can’t cover all the OPAs that show up in life. More and more, however, are dismissed for the simple reason that the OPA does NOT aline with my ultimate goals. =)
Very good article.
So true! focus, focus, focus!
Cynthia,
Thank you for the reminder. Sometimes I easily become a victim of OPA. Thank you for making me think about this.
Thanks, Dora! You’re not the only one. This is tough for a lot of us.
I love love love this post!
Cynthia, your thoughts and wisdom resonate hugely with me as I struggle constantly with that tension and conflict between ‘want to maintain our focus and stay in relationship with the world’ – beautifully stated.
For me this struggle is closely related to the ability to say an I-hope-friendly but also calm-yet-confident ‘No’ at times to OPAs.
One of my favourite ‘No’ books that has greatly helped me over the years — I return to it regularly for a refresher! — is ‘how to SAY NO without feeling guilty’ by Patti Breitmanand Connie Hatch. One thing I learned from them and really love is exactly as you suggest – the idea of developing ‘policies’ around our most stressful / common / OPA requests.
BTW I have not seen that term ‘OPA’ before — love it!
Cheers and good luck to all of us with this ongoing challenge.
Thanks, Carolyn, for your comment and for the book suggestion. It’s always a challenge to be diplomatic and firm. I know a lot of us struggle with not wanting to let others down.
I made OPA up, as far as I know. Many of my articles come from my coaching sessions; OPA was my response to something a client was going through. Don’t fall prey to OPA! I shouted.
Thank you for reading and commenting!
Such a good point! And I wasn’t even aware of calling it that, or that that’s why I wasn’t getting things done!
I offered to volunteer for a group that wants to help women and children. I offered my graphic services (I.e., working at my computer), yet it seems to have ballooned into the group asking me to find venues for fundraisers and decorating and even conference calls! Not what I signed on for, yet my fault for not curbing all of these inherently good acts. Your article put into words my situation. Thank you!
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