Buffering in business

As a life coach who coaches businesswomen, I noticed that struggling businesswomen have their own form of buffering.

Buffering is a term used in coaching to describe an action done not to feel “negative” emotions.

We can clearly see buffering when someone overeats not to feel negative emotions and weigh more than they want to or spend money to feel better, creating debt or extra clutter in the home.

In business, the buffering is in the form of taking a ton of non-income producing activity like cleaning the office or inventory, taking another training or reading another book, taking a ton of the same action without evaluating if the action is producing the result we want or even questioning why not, or even spinning in mind-drama and turning the discomfort of growth into drama and blaming.

When a businesswoman is busy blaming the economy, the market, or anything else outside of her, instead of sitting with the uncomfortable emotions AND tweaking her marketing, her product/service, or her presentation and mindset, she is buffering with blame.

Yes, the blame seems necessary, but it advocates responsibility to something outside ourselves instead of feeling the discomfort, taking responsibility, and deciding to do something different.

And just like other forms of buffering, this one has us taking a ton of action and leaves us earning less than we want to earn.