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Last updated
Last updated
There are many occasions where people commit to doing something, be it to themselves, to work or anyone else in the form of obligation. However, as they progress with that obligation or commitment, their efforts wear off. The dedication and zest they once began work with turns stale.
From distractions to lack of motivation to go along with the commitment, people grow tired for various reasons. The initial motivation that was there to do something fades. As a result, the particular task/obligation/commitment bears the consequences of it in the form of a poor turnout.
This is a common occurrence in our lives. Each of us goes through the phase of what we call a ‘burnout.’ Intense and sustained stress can lead to burnout, which is a cause of emotional, bodily, and cognitive weariness. When you are stressed, emotionally tired, and unable to meet constant demands, it is called burnout.
Burnout is what leads us to be inconsistent in our efforts toward accomplishing something. We start to feel tired constantly. That takes a toll on our mental awareness, making us lose focus. It greatly contributes to us doing things without paying heed to our efforts. We become deaf to the rhythm of our efforts, making us go unconscious to our efforts and progress.
So what leads to burnout or inconsistency?
Reasons Why Consistency Evaporates Over Time
When you commit to taking any action in the future, this is referred to as time consistency. It's time coherent if the motivation to keep the vow is the same as the motive to make it. However, due to various factors, we tend to forget our initial motivation to being consistent.
When the motive of doing something is not there, how can we expect to be motivated to do something? Motive is the engine to motivation, in which absence we cannot function.
Suppose you are experiencing something similar to starting a project or any task only to find yourself half-hearted about it halfway through. In that case, you may be on the verge of burnout, contributing to your inconsistency.
The following are signs that can help you identify if your motive is inconsistent:
Distancing Yourself From Work-Related Activities: Burnout causes people to see their occupations becoming increasingly demanding and frustrating. They could become pessimistic about their working conditions and coworkers. They may also become disengaged from their profession and become numb to it.
Physical Health Being Compromised: When you get tired and cannot focus on ongoing tasks, your physical health may be affected. From indigestion to headaches and blurry visions, all of these are symptoms that you are tiring yourself.
Mental Fatigue: This one is a given. You are unable to see your efforts and progress. When you do not recognize your input, your mental energy will drop low. It is human instinct to strive for progress. When you cannot identify your progress, it will take a toll on you mentally.
Burnout means feeling exhausted, depleted, and unable to function. Individuals frequently lack the energy to perform their tasks.
All of this may sound harrowing. It is more dreading for the person undergoing a burnout phase. Their efforts are turn inconsistent, leading them to assume they no longer qualify for what they are working towards.
The core cause behind burnout is a time-inconsistent commitment. What do I mean by this? To simply put it, the commitment you once made to get something done has a loophole in terms of time or commitment.
For example, you promise to help out a friend with their project tomorrow. But when tomorrow rolls in, a work of yours pops up, requiring attention. But since you committed, you attempt to do two tasks at a time. As a result, it takes a toll on your energy. Do not this is a trivial example, which can be recovered easily with a good night’s rest.
Alternatively, most of us make such commitments daily at work. It can take the form of procrastination even, and we all know procrastination never ends well. Over time, the build-up of inconsistency over time will lead us to derail from our goals and visions. So how can one steer back to time consistency?
Finding Greatness All Over Again
“Find me something great, and I’ll show you a long journey of ‘showing up’ that led it to its greatness.”
- Unknown.
The reason behind losing motivation is not knowing why you are doing something anymore. You lose the initial understanding of performing a task or commitment. While the reason behind this varies, from not getting what you wanted to lack efforts from the other end, if something leaves you with a void, you will lose motivation behind achieving it.
A lacking sense of achievement makes us forget why we started our journey in the first place. Here, we need to realign our vision and reignite our motive behind doing what we started.
Two things can be done here to regain that greatness you once worked with or to let go if something is not serving you. Because even with letting go, you are only cutting off something that may not have worked out in your favor. And when you cut off something that did not serve you, you will be able to navigate yourself towards your greatness and what you are meant to do.
If you are doing something that serves you, but due to inconsistencies along the way felt it’s not working out, you need to reignite that spark of motivation.
You need to take a break and reflect on your journey so far. Think of the reason why you started doing that thing in the first place. That should be enough to invoke a sense of hanging on than letting go. Once you reminisce of the initial motive, you need to reflect on all that you have achieved.
Even if these achievements are trivial and may not directly serve your goal, think of these as rewards for your efforts thus far. Induce an acknowledgment system where your skills being polished and you discovering more goals for yourself will be the reward you gained.
Therefore, by giving your time, heart, and soul to achieving something, you reaped the benefits in the form of enhancing skills and broadening your abilities. When you do so, you will feel less tired of your progress when you acknowledge all that you have gained than focusing on the loss.
You will find the purpose and motivation again. Once you identify all that you achieved, your efforts will no longer seem inconsistent to you. Once you find the greatness of self-development, you will see the ‘showing up’ of your journey that has just begun. And that in itself is the paramount greatness of all.
Each Day is a New Start
Every day is a chance for a new beginning. It doesn't matter what the circumstances were yesterday; what matters is getting to today. When you wake up every morning, remember that every day is full of possibilities just waiting to be seized. It's a fresh day, a clean slate. You are about to begin a new chapter in your life.
All of the inconsistencies that took place are the doings of yesterday. You do not have to let them be the undoing of your present and the future. As the famous quote by Eleanor Roosevelt goes, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. Today is present, which is why it’s called a gift.”
Whatever happened yesterday, leave it there. Do not let the burden of yesterday’s inconsistencies weigh you down. Do not let the lack of motivation yesterday overshadow the spirits of today. If you wallow in what happened before, you will fail to source your energy to move forward.
Each day is a new slate for us to write the happenings for that day. Think of it this way – if you keep scribbling what happened, you will be stuck in the loop of the past. Your goals for the future will turn to dust. Consequently, all that you will attempt to do will not make any sense. And when nothing makes sense, you will end up thinking, “What and why am I doing anything when I achieved nothing?”
What dwelling in the past does is serve as a reflection. It is not there for you to accept as your reality. Your reality is what you choose to do today that can impact your future for the betterment.
If you wish to reverse being stuck and set yourself to motion, you will have to change things for yourself. In many ways, you can do so, the first being, take your past as a reflection to not make the same mistakes.
Once you recognize your errors, you can avoid them.
The next step to take is to accept that yesterday will only influence your future if you let it. You have the power to change the course of your life. If something was done wrongly yesterday, you could always amend it, as long as you are willing to.
Accepting that yesterday is gone, let it take away your fatigue and frustration. Replace that with the energy of the new morning sun. This is why people tend to start their day with meditation or exercise. Do anything that allows you to bask under the morning sun. It will give you a sense of freshness, boosting your mood and morale.
With a good mood, you will find your energy bubbling. You can then transfer that energy into accomplishing your tasks and setting things right. The gist of it all is, once you can understand how your past is not holding you back, it is you. You can reverse things for yourself.
Once you understand that you have the power to make a change and utilize each day to the fullest, you will be able to seek your lost motivation once more.
Passion Can Be Created Through Mastery
Understanding how life gives us a chance to move along each day and make things better for ourselves, the next big challenge that comes forth is Passion vs. Mastery.
For those confused between the two, passion is what we like to do, and mastery is what we are good at. While it is not a rare combination for a person to master their passion, they can have a separate passion and proficient skill they use. Such is often found when people with artistic skills are found in a whole other industry, working.
If that is the case, is it possible for a person to be impassionate about their good? The truth is, no. While doing things we are good at without passion may be a leading cause of career/personal life dissatisfaction, we can change this course for ourselves.
I will skip the whole conversation of finding the motivation to turn your passion into a job because there is a ton of guidance out there for it. What I will focus on instead is how you can converge passion from your current standpoint.
It may seem to find passion in your current stance if it does not entice or excite you. Nevertheless, it does not mean this will be the way of life for you forever. All you have to work on is your perception, and find at least one part of your current work or education, or any task that you are doing into fun.
If you are to turn your current commitment into something fun, it will make you look forward to it every day. For example, you may be working as an accountant, though you are passionate about cooking. Instead of cooking on the sideline, you can turn accounting fun by changing your work mode. How so?
Since cooking is fun as it allows you space to experiment, similarly, you can make work experimental by not working in one place. Go for accounting jobs that will allow you to work for different clients, work freelance. It will give you a little creative freedom in terms of being elsewhere than sitting behind a desk.
As you will continue to master working from different places for different clients, you will start to induce freehand elements into your job. That will help eradicate the mundane nature of working as an accountant and leading to at least a sense of passion for you to look forward to each day.
In short, while masteries are our intellectual capabilities, personality qualities, life experience, emotional talents, attributes, and current experiences, we are referred to as passions. When we use our intellectual capabilities with our talents, it will create a unique blend of experience, forming passion through our mastery.
No other day would seem dull or stale. We will wake up looking forward to each day as a new beginning.
Diverse Consistency
By turning mastery into passion, we enable ourselves to understand how each day grants us the opportunity to reverse our inconsistency. The inconsistency over time is what leads us to lose focus on everything we do. It blurs our ability to acknowledge we have worked hard and what needs to be amended for us to succeed.
When facing such a dilemma, we can think of it as ‘Diverse consistency,’ which is the art of finding an insatiable balance between the things you want and need to do.
While finding the balance can be deemed the key to happiness, maintaining that balance is tricky.
See, for you to succeed in your endeavors, you have to be consistent in your approach and time. You have to have that same level of energy and motivation you had when you first began something. Be it relationships, education, or job; everything requires consistency. If you falter along the way and fail to keep up, you may lose all progress and not achieve what you once thought.
The common factor that leads to inconsistency in commitments is often people going astray. They get enticed by something else than what they are working at. Such a division of interest may be deemed as either conflict of interest or a diversion. Here, it becomes key for you to acknowledge what it is you want.
If you wish to have both things, know it may come with a risk of losing either-or. This is a very subjective matter in actuality. I believe you can have your cake and eat it too, as long as it does not come at the expanse of hurting someone’s sentiment or self-sabotage.
If you find your passion divided in relationships, it is naturally advised to leave the person you are contemplating someone else over.
If this is the case for education or job, there is the greatest fix for you. I call Diverse Consistency, meaning you can work on your passion and cognitive ability. Just that, you will have to find a way to balance it out.
Such a move does come with months and months of practice, dedication, and constant reminders of what it is that you want. As long as you remember your end goal, you will never run out of the motivation to continue keeping up with your commitments.
The one thing that will make diverse consistency manageable will be the dose that will come from doing what you’re passionate about. You will be able to reason with yourself that while you are doing something you like, it’s because you have a cognitive mastery of keeping other aspects of your life in check.
And then, with time, as you will practice the motion of passion and mastery, your efforts will become consistent in their pursuit, leading to the clarity of acknowledging your progress!
When it comes to being patient, it is not a virtue for most of us. Or we can say our circumstances do not allow patience to be a virtue. The need to rush through things and getting them done in the blink of an eye has surpassed everything. Be it at work or grocery shopping, the way the world is evolving is phenomenally hasty.
We are now capable of performing actions in the blink of an eye. With that, the ability to be patient has started to diminish. And as we master the art of quick decision-making, we have adapted to this lifestyle. Waiting is deemed as a dreadful chore now.
So what happens when we start dreading the very thing that is meant to be an asset? We deprive ourselves of the very weapon that can help us fight every adversary and challenge that we face in life.
Building the Foundations of Patience
Long gone are the days where people knew the value of waiting for things. Be it waiting for an outcome or commencing a commitment or task, where previous letters would take months to reach. We now await a reply for only minutes.
If our emails and instant messages are not responded to within a fictitious time frame of minutes, we start to think of the situation in a worst-case scenario. These are just the trivial aspects, given the lifestyle we are now going through has boosted impatience above all.
The true damage impatience has cast upon is our productivity. We all seem in a rush and often cannot even rationalize our need to speed past things. What can be done in 2 hours? We want it done within 30 minutes. Some may view this as efficient; I view it as losing the ability to understand what you are doing.
When don’t you understand what you are doing and why, how can you expect it to contribute to you somehow? And I am not even talking about personal growth (you can only grow when you can comprehend your actions). I am referring to being conscious of your actions.
Impatience has led us to be half-unconscious most of the time. We are working like programmed robots. So what do you think happens when you live robotically? You lose the essence of life you need as humans.
Unfortunately, we no longer want to wait, leading to patience becoming an antiquated concept for few situations.
As humans, the essence of life is understanding our actions, our reasons, and our motives, which brings us joy and sadness. When we work on a set routine as if it’s a program, we cannot understand anything we do, let alone track our progress. Consequently, we feel we haven’t achieved anything when in fact, we are making progress daily.
Now reflect on this – Why are you doing your tasks/obligations/commitment’s when you think you haven’t achieved anything? Does this not make your actions, input, efforts, and hard work seem redundant? It does, right? So why are you going along with things if they are redundant?
There is no answer to that because impatience is involved. Impatience leads a person to be restless and agitated when they do not find themselves getting results quickly. With getting restless, impatient people tend to lose focus of their actions while the urge to get to the result is heightened. This goes on until problems start to occur for the person involved.
These people are expecting results, forgetting that things will happen at their pace. From ordering something to executing a project or waiting for someone’s response, people forget that there are limits to be immediate results – they are dependent on uncontrollable factors.
These factors are all variables controlling the outcome of an ongoing task. From delivery involved to stakeholders debating on financing a project to an individual considering their options of committing to you in any way, you cannot control or manipulate someone else's answer. The end would result in the impatient person making a hasty decision, which harbors the possibility of damaging things.
That is where patience steps in. Patience is more than a virtue – It is damage control in our lives. Patience heals. It teaches us humility and the importance of waiting for things. Patience teaches us how to be calm, especially when things go wrong. Patience teaches us to be level-headed than to lose our temper, which can help us cope with situations better. With a calm head and patience, our ability to resolve situations will be better. We will be able to see through things clearly and come up with the best solution possible.
While a fast-paced life seems appealing, it has little to offer other than materialistic acquisitions. Even then, some people may lose their materialistic gains all because of a rush.
When people no longer remember the taste of patience, they are starved with greed. When you turn greedy, you can no longer look through things with logic. And when there is no logic in your actions, you are only making yourself vulnerable to different forms of loss. From lack of motivation to sadness to feeling as though you are incapable of achieving things – It is truly something how impatience can make us perceive life under a harrowing light.
Alternatively, with patience, we can remain calm. Even if something goes wrong, patience allows us to smile through everything and look for the silver lining instead. When our mind is not bubbling with concern or anxiety about things just happen, it retains clarity. And clarity is needed when we have to make decisions and perform everyday tasks.
Patience is the willingness to wait upon perhaps through something while being peaceful. If patience is a discipline, there must be some form of stress involved in the awaiting, even if it is merely indifference and not particularly discomfort.
The Science of Slow and Methodical Decision-Making
Patience is critical when it comes to decision-making. As we understand the importance of patience in our lives and how it is a disciplined quality, we need to understand its involvement in decision-making.
Every task that we perform requires us to make decisions, from opening our eyes to drinking water to identifying the path we want to take in life. Each decision that we stake comes with the mechanism of patience.
The consequences of our decision rely on our level of endurance throughout the process. If we rush through things, the consequences will be sleazy. Whereas, if we take time, we will concentrate and focus on what and how we are doing things, resulting in a more concrete outcome.
To get this concrete outcome, we have to reiterate the importance of slow decision-making. Each one of us has two sides when it comes to decision-making. One is the quick thinker, ready to jump on its feet. The other is sluggish, though he puts more thoughts before taking action.
As the name says it for the quick-thinker, it is ready to decide at the earliest. Naturally, decisions here are made on impulse than thoughts and consideration. The amount of consideration that goes into quick thinking is limited. While this may be necessary for some places, its downside can be catastrophic.
The first catastrophe would be of being subconscious of the deed done. One may realize their change of heart after making a decision, which results in regrets often. Other setbacks would prevail in the form of negative thinking of having missed an opportunity or being too harsh on self for being impulsive.
For the other, sluggish part, they may often miss opportunities as they delay making a decision. However, when they decide on something, it is measured. These people can move past the sentiment of remorse as they have analyzed their situation. They are equipped with statistics to combat the reminder of ‘You missed out, with logical facts of why they were contemplating for so long.
The sluggish side of ours is equipped with patience, and the quick thinking is equipped with impulse. What is astounding is that both of these sides can be found within us. That means we can channel either side of ours, depending on the situation.
If we are equipped with the ability to make decisions in any way, what makes us decide if a decision requires thinking or our impulse? To understand this, we need to understand the nature of the decision required.
If you are confused about what dress to wear or what meal to eat, you are free to be impulsive, as even then, certain protocols are running at the back of your head. These protocols are often the place you are headed to and the time availability, forming a set of options for you to pick from.
Decisions that are oriented to more serious things differ. These are the ones that require you to be present and aware of what you are choosing. These are personal and professional-oriented, meaning you have to give a thought before concluding something.
Decision-making relies on our ability to calculate our gain through it. Our risk and probability estimations are fundamentally flawed. Recklessness and behavioral biases result because of this. People are resistant to change when there is a good chance of benefit and seek change when there is a tremendous chance of failure. When the likelihood of profit or loss is minimal, they flip these strategies. Worse, regardless of how they are presented, they will change their stance.
There are strategies practical to decision-making. One such is where personal judgment is not preferred over-analytical approach or professional guidelines. These require more patience, while personal judgment is often impulsive. However, organized decision-making and its structures can remain unbalanced.
Naturally, sentiment plays a larger role in judgment. An intense emotional occurrence is given far more prominence than less emotionally driven situations, where patience is put to the test. One important factor to keep in mind is that remembering influences judgment. The highest emotional intensity of an incident and its ending, rather than the overall incident, overwhelms our memory of it. The good memories influence our perception of a negative incident.
We all like to live peaceful life. Thus we aspire for the state of 'mental peace.' That is, we choose concepts that immediately spring to mind, match our core views, and don't burden our minds.
Our commitments/tasks that are understandable, clearly worded, and unforgettable seem to be more convincing. This activates the quick thinker. However, if we're to question or influence people's behavioral patterns, we must activate the sluggish thinker to force our minds into actually deliberating over the decision. Contrary to popular belief, negative messaging might be more impactful than positive thoughts because we are motivated to manage risk than to put effort into something stable.
The science of decision-making, as stated above, may seem overwhelming, but it sketches the gist of our we perceive things. It suffices to say that our two sides, the impulsive and rational, work best when we are calm as per the situation.
Alternatively, when we rush ourselves through things, we are blurring the line between our two sides. Consequently, the sluggish side may let the quick-thinker jump the gun when we conceive a situation to be concluded immediately.
Nevertheless, if we embrace peace, we will find our two sides channeling a judgment to their best of abilities. We are under no constraint when we are at peace; we are waging war within ourselves when we rush through things. In the end, a war always results in casualties, which in our case will be lingering regrets of having made a decision otherwise.
Patience is Relaxed, Calm, and Stress-Free
Patience brings about evenness to the turmoil of a hectic schedule. Patience is platonic yet provides us with the most serenity, enabling us to have full control over any situation that we face.
The concept of waiting, however, has turned repulsive. Given how the virtual world works on instant gratification, from swift responses to immediate media sharing, we are integrating a similar mindset of instant gratification within the younger generation especially.
These people are growing up without understanding the hours’ worth of wait to go to a library and looking up for it; Google is the one-stop 24/7/365 available encyclopedia. In such a happening, survival is bleak. How can people survive if they do not understand how to cope with patience when required? Patience and endurance are critical when it comes to success even.
With patience, we have control over our actions. Patience grants us solace to deal with situations, preventing us from reacting negatively to our happenings. It also teaches us that we are no more important or insignificant to others, teaching us to be humble. When we are humble, we learn to deal with things at their peace without any expectancy of a rush.
When we are patient, we acknowledge that no matter how much we try to push something, it will only happen at its pace. There are things beyond our control, and we should not try to manipulate them. The benefits of knowing we cannot control or determine the course of actions around us help us deal with other’s actions as well.
This is critical when dealing with harassment or demeaning remarks of others. Patience shapes our mindset to be one of generosity. The quick-thinker, instead of impulsively dealing with snide remarks, in the same way, allows the sluggish side to take charge.
The sluggish side takes time to process what happened. Then, it models our action to let the snide remarks be; what others say about us will never define our character. Only our actions define our character, which grants comfort, making us patient with our situation.
When you are not rushing things, your mind is at peace. There is no need for you to be stressed about something not working out or why something is getting delayed. Sounds surreal? It isn’t. Patience grants you immense peace with the way things are unraveling around you.
When you accept things the way they are, instead of manipulating the timeline of an outcome, you are teaching yourself to be ok with gratification. This is where the concept of delayed gratification comes to play as well. Where the trending social media sets unrealistic expectations of instant gratification due to our quick-thinker, patience teaches us how to be at peace with delayed gratification.
It enables us to accept things when they are meant to come. We no longer feel saddened by something not happening when we want it to. Rather, we learn how to find joy through the wait of our reward after doing something. In turn, being at peace with delays will make us more successful.
How so? It’s quite simple. When you learn how to be ok with everything working out on its timeline, you will understand you are not at fault. As humans, when we understand something was not our fault, we are content with our actions. Contentment will lead to a relaxed state of mind, allowing you to see your efforts.
Finally, being able to see your efforts will signify the importance of your strengths. You will be able to bask under the knowledge of the lessons you learned along the way, shaping your mind and strengths further. And so, when you will finally reap the reward after having accomplished something, you will see more than just the outcome – you will see how you emerged better and stronger.
Your accomplishment at the expanse of patience will be more than just physical; it will be the spiritual wellbeing of too.
Once you understand the concept of patience, you will see there is no need for you to do things swiftly. Once the ‘hurry-up aspect is eradicated from your system, you will be able to concentrate on your actions and inputs. Concentration will attract awareness toward your skills. You will be able to focus on yourself.
Patience lets you take things at a normal pace. Think of it as a drive. If you are speeding, your surroundings will be blurry. But if you are to drive at a normal pace, you will notice the scenery around you. That is what life is about – in the present moment and not the future. To focus on the present, you need to be conscious.
Let’s come back to our drive. When you are speeding, you are anxious. Your mind is racing as well, thinking of preventing road collisions.
Anger Management
Frustration and anger cripple calmness. They uproot peace, leaving a person tossing and turning in bed at night.
Life makes all of us experience frustration, agitation, and anger. The reasons behind these negative emotions are many – from personal relationships to personal and professional struggles and familial issues – we all have been at the spectrum where despair had us clutched.
Now there are means and help for people to cope with despair, but these emotions can become a rage if it’s not dealt with.
What births rage within us, though? It is always what we experience? Chances are no. Rage is more of an external impact on our existing frustration. When we go through a situation that is testing every ounce of our patience, we start to fear losing our grip over the situation. That fear leaves us fuming, and we end up lashing out at our surroundings.
The effects of lashing out are far severe and can have a life-long impact on our life, even on our growth. Let’s take the simplest of road rage as an example. It is a result of impatience. For some people, entitlement senses that they do not need to wait, while for others, it is the urgency of reaching somewhere.
When rushing, people are late for various reasons once again. From time management issues to getting caught up in last moment things, which boils us all the more. As a result, we end up lashing out at everything that comes before us. We do not pause for a moment to reflect on our actions and their impact, allowing anger to get the best of us.
That anger and moment of frustration are far catastrophic than we can imagine. Many accidents result from road rage, where drivers and passengers pay the cost of their lives because of one person’s piling emotions.
Road rage is not all the damage that we witness. Rage damages a person’s ability to see their development. Rage is an extreme case of anger. It is a fit of frustration where we lose control. At that moment, we get so blinded by anger that we do not take note of our actions, let alone be worried about its consequences. The damage that was done at the expanse of anger only adds to our fury, creating a drift of endless frustration.
The point of concern here becomes when the piling of negative emotions cuts us off from our abilities and strength. We no longer acknowledge our good side and efforts, leading to further unhappiness.
These emotions work in sync to push us into the pits of dissatisfaction and perceived failure. While we may not necessarily be failing, rage blinds us. It makes us think of everything as bad.
So even if we were taking a step forward, our emotions would tell us how burdensome the process is, eventually tiring us to a point where we would give up. Then, all that we worked for would be in vain. We would no longer have the willingness or motivation to get back up.
While this damage would be reversible initially, it would turn irrecoverable if we would continue to cave into a rage. As a result, our growth would stop. It will not be even a stunt – it will come to a halt.
The effects of this are only adverse and rather obvious to be stated. Think about it, did you come this far in life only to let anger dictate your future negatively? If not, then why let rage prevail?
Rage goes beyond the road and surely leads to the grave. From dreams and passion to relationships, rage kills all that it consumes. The decision you would need to make here is what matters to you – your future or the sudden decline your life is heading toward?
If you are choosing your future, you would need to revert to the path of peace and contentment. There are many ways to gain control, though the initial step you would have to take would be a decision.
The decision of wanting to gain control falls above all forms of assistance to manage your anger. It is the initial step you take to tell your mind you want to change things. A common myth people have is that anger management comes from therapy or medication, although it comes from the power of conviction.
No assistance can help you with anything if your mind does not agree to it, so why let anger get the best of you? Why let rage define your future, for which you have worked hard.
You may not see your progress because the negative emotions make you lose your focus. However, why let negativity prevail? Why let the negative take you off your path?
Instead of focusing on the negative emotions that induce rage, you can try to reverse things to be successful again.
External Stimuli
Any incident that is beyond our influence is referred to as "external stimuli." There are many things in life that we cannot control, often leading to temper when patience could have been the answer. From traffic on the way to work to extensive queues at supermarkets, these situations may seem trivial but are a significant cause of rage at times. In such scenarios, where we experience an incident beyond our authority, we need to understand that the situation cannot be helped with temper. Hence, we should not become enraged or stressed out about them.
Nearly every day, we go through situations that are absolutely beyond our grasp, so how do we respond? We are concerned. We are apprehensive. We become confused and annoyed, and we allow our rage to rule our day. As a result, we waste a lot of our energy stressing and being frustrated.
We believe that by brooding on the problem, we will find an answer, and we are often correct... if the scenario is one that we have considerable influence over. Differentiating from things you can regulate and things you can't save you a great deal of time, effort, and emotions.
Rage isn't going to fix everything.
Now, I'd like to present the techniques you need to begin making progress, irrespective of your anger. First and foremost, let us learn to differentiate between things we have no command of and those over which we have.
Knowing the contrast between what you can manage and what you can't dictate where you think your dominance is stored. When you strive and resist against anything you can't change, you perpetuate the unpleasant emotions.
You may become enraged since you lack control, or you may believe you are inadequate because you are powerless to fix it. You may even strike out and inflict emotional distress on another because of something you never could prevent initially.
However, once you know that it is beyond your influence, you grant yourself the option to reclaim your authority. You need to understand that our fortitude is decided by what you are doing with your problems, not by what they are. Once you realize this, your perception will change, making you feel calmer about your situation.
Once you determine that you don't influence the circumstance, you will understand that there is no reason for you to fight over it. So why fight it when you could use that energy to make yourself feel happy while you're going through it?
Acknowledging issues over which you have no influence is the initial step in coping with them. Recognize that they've arrived and that you'll have to work hard to get over this, and that the situation will leave you with a lesson for your future.
Be conscious of your surroundings, engage in them, and be fascinated by them. This doesn't imply you must surrender your authority to it; all you have to do is realize its presence. You relieve a lot of the aggravation, worry, and despair that accompanies an uncontrollable incident by doing so. In addition, you may learn wisdom out of your setbacks by consciously selecting your reaction to them.
Ask yourself what is causing a problem to take place? Is there a ray of hope through the setback you are facing? There are many situations where we realize our frustration was invalid upon discovering the truth. When that happens, we rationalize our anger by not having known. But isn't that the purpose of patience? To wait until the actual truth enlightens us?
Truthfully, being human, we cave into anger only to feel embarrassed later on. However, we can change this. Next time we are in a problematic situation, we can tell ourselves to wait for a little and discover the truth than lash out.
Look into the why of the occurrence to see if it makes you feel better. Then, have a look if you can't find it.
That is the motive of external stimuli anyway – to help us overcome our temper and adopt the habit of patience. Just think of how better you would feel if you could rationalize your actions consciously before taking an impulsive action and embarrassing yourself amidst the process!
All that needs to be done is to make a conscious decision – of being present in your current situation. Being aware that there may be something bigger behind what you’re experience will not only calm you down but will leave you feeling better and more in control of the situation.
That is because when you are calm, you can think better. Your mind is not fogged with negative emotions weighing you out. Instead, you will feel lighter. And with a clear head, you will be able to think through the situation better. So embrace this external stimuli life renders you, and you will see just how much control you have over your life.
“The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.”
-Jacqueline Schiff
With a thousand remedies to tame your anger, walking happens to be best. Though why is that?
Journey over Destination
Every person views the definition of a walk, a journey, and a destination differently, overlooking the similarity each has to offer – surrounding yourself with the beauty of life.
Be it a walk you are taking or a journey you are embarking on, all of it is reaching a destination – your goal. That goal is your motive to progress in life and face all odds. But through this walk of life, what people often forget is the joy that comes from a ride. With the road bumps and hurdles that come, one may focus on their frequent appearance rather than what lies before them or around them.
Shifting your focus on the setbacks will only hinder your path. They will obstruct your view. When you start focusing on the negative, your mind will develop a pattern of only looking out for all that could go wrong then contemplate how you can walk over a road bump.
However, if you are to take a deep breath and focus on your path, you will see how things look before you and around you. Importantly, when you take time to focus on your journey, you will see how far you have walked. It must have seemed incomprehensible to come this far when you would have initially begun your walk, yet look at you.
The key to looking at things comes through the art of a long walk. When you have been walking for a long, you learn how to be ok with the pace. The concept of instant gratification goes away with the wind since you will always have the ability to turn and look back at the starting point, then turn and look ahead at your destination. The progress you commenced will serve as a humble reminder of acknowledgment.
Above all, when you learn how to take each step toward your destination, you are training your mind to be patient with things. You are teaching yourself that you cannot fly over to your dreams; rather, you have to accept the timing of your journey.
Through this training, the other thing you are doing is becoming conscious. As you grow consciousness, you can focus on your progress and development. By doing so, you can rationalize peace over anger.
You see, when you rush through something, the frenzy of getting things done rapidly comes at the cost of refusing awareness of all that you have achieved. When you are unaware of your achievements, your mind will start to think of itself poorly. Some of these may be to the extreme lengths of feeling worthless despite having worked hard.
To prevent all of this, you have to learn how to accept life. That can be done through the art of a walk. You may notice that whenever you walk, after a while, your pace and tone calm down. That is because you are giving yourself the time to let it all out, and once you are done, what we think of as venting, your mind comes to peace after letting out. The only perk is that you do not take a walk with the person or situation you are mad at, saving you from a lot of damage.
The walk you are taking serves as a medium for you to go on, giving you the impression that time is infinite. Your mind will comprehend and copy this to your problems too. Confused? Let me make it simpler. When you start a walk, you may vent for thirty minutes tops? Then what happens? You continue to walk. Why? Because the act of going on starts to bring you subconscious comfort.
You are going on despite all that is happening. That feeling brings subtle peace, making you take one step after another. Then, as this motion becomes a drill, your mind, having expressed all that was hovering above it, starts to relax. Nothing is burdening your mind now. It is all out on the path you have walked….in fact, left behind.
You continue walking, though, because it is giving you a sense of serenity. At this point, your mind finally starts to take notice of its surrounding. Be it pavement, your mind will absorb the creaks on the path and the cars passing by. It will fall into a mindless drift of being fascinated by each thing it sees. Your woes that you began with, by now, are behind you.
Your steps will feel lighter as your body would have gotten rid of all disturbing thoughts.
Another example to help you understand this magic is through a car ride or road trip. People enjoy the ride more than reaching the actual destination. That’s because it is the journey that brings about endless incidents than reaching a destination. When you reach a destination, your goal comes to an end, leaving you wondering what next.
However, the ride keeps you anticipating the moment you would reach your designated destination. The ride then gets filled with the companionship of your solitude/music/friends/family/ and even a book. The ideology behind this is that when you are taking a ride, your mind accepts that you cannot do anything else until you reach a point.
When you make peace with the fact that you cannot do something to speed up the process of your ride or walk, your mind relaxes. Again, we have talked about this in the previous chapter as external stimuli. Do you see how interconnected your life is?
Each step you take does lead to something bigger collectively. So why fret over your situation when all of your actions will redirect you to where you are supposed to be? Instead, focus on the journey you are on. Take the time to explore your surroundings.
Be ok with the pace you are walking at – you like it. Only, you have to make the conscious decision of leaving your anger behind and focus on what stands before you. Enjoy your surroundings. Experience the world around you at your pace.
“Waiting in line” for the bus story.- Can you please direct toward the bus story?
“Listen” to hear. “Observe” to see. “Feel” to be.
The one mistake most people make is that they are not active or aware of what is happening. Routines are so hectic that people process incidents and situations on impulse than comprehension.
Listen to Hear
The need for comprehension in today’s world is dire. With more people acting on impulse, there is a scarcity in personal development, relations, and work ethics. Yes, a simple act of acting on impulse can result in many aspects of our lives getting affected.
Again, everything is interconnected. Our actions affect our situations. So while everything may not be in our control, our reaction is most definitely in our control.
While a walk will help induce a sense of peace, the other thing you can do to control your emotions is to utilize your senses. It may sound absurd. Are we not using our senses? We are! Although not to their right potential.
Let’s start with the problem. For example, when you get a project, you will read through the details, hear what the client has to say, and sit right away to work on it. It seems organized. However, there is a constraint to this. You are only reading the words than understanding how the client wants that project to roll out. What happens next is that the client may come complaining about how the work is not as per their expectations.
You may amend it initially, only to realize you are going on a loop with the client. None of you can resolve the issue, and that is because neither listened to hear. You only listened to act.
How can you listen to hear then, and what is the difference? To begin with, the difference between listening to hear is getting to know the outcome of something. Listening to act is you understanding something enough to be done with it.
To hear, you will have to sit down and talk about the project with the client. Rather than focusing on the details of the projects, ask for the requirements and their motive behind the work. What is it that is to be achieved? This will help develop a foundation of the motive behind your work, giving you a better picture of the client’s expectations.
Observe to See
Then comes observation. It is pretty similar to listening to hear to acting. Often, we view our distress as a calamity than trying to observe the situation.
In many parts of life, the distinction between seeing and observing is crucial. Observation is far more than just looking at something; it's a conceptual approach that takes both vision and mind.
So, when you only see a situation, you only accept the visual challenge a situation may entail. That way, your brain only focuses on the superficial negative layer, feeling powerless about the situation. As a result, you may not be able to come up with solutions. You will look at the situation in a dead-end manner since your mind will not be involved.
Alternatively, when you observe, you involve your mind in the visuals. Your mind will grow curious and try to think of all that is involved, from why something occurred to the motives involved in a challenge. Observation will trigger a deep thought process, making you use your senses.
That way, you will enable yourself to ask – are you doing the right thing? Are you approaching something the right way? Does your task serve you in any way? If not, what can be done right?
Do you see the vast difference now? Barely seeing something allows you to focus on the negative. You get the job done, though it is incorrect because you went for the first glimpse. Whereas observing something allows you to focus on the solutions as well. Observing lets, you take a moment to see things thoroughly for what they are. Additionally, observation will channel your conscious state, making you mindful of all that is taking place.
Feel to Be
Once you learn how to comprehend and observe, you can understand the definition of ‘feel.’ The common factor that attributes the disconnection of one’s presence to their surroundings is the lack of utilization of one’s senses—the effects of this result in demotivation to accomplish tasks and live up to your potential.
When you sit down and ask questions to comprehend a situation, when you sit down and observe things as they happen, you force your conscious state to awaken. When your mind awakens, you will be able to see things for what they are and have to offer. That will make you justify your actions. With a justified sense of what you are doing, your work will become meaningful.
You will have a better understanding of why you are doing something. An increasingly common sight is people feeling disconnected from their actions and workplace. They feel as though they are not part of something despite being in that circle.
What happens is that when people simply do things as a routine, their mind cannot understand how they are benefiting from it? Moreover, to understand how a person benefits from something or how that particular thing is serving them, they have to feel like a part of the system. However, it gets disconnected since our actions are impulse-based.
When you feel like a part of something, your actions find a motive, bringing you contentment. As humans, we cannot do something without knowing they are serving us in any way. It is human instinct. Regardless, working on getting something done defies this very instinct, leading to a sense of detachment.
Detachment can then lead to hearing and seeing to act than to understand the logic behind a situation. What gets comprised through this detachment is our sense of belonging. Our emotions may become muddled, leading to a chain of events that will leave us with frustration and anger.
How can you overcome all of this? It is through making mindful decisions of what you are to do. It intends your movements. Once your mind registers an act as your intention, it will grow alert, giving you a sense of control through the process. As you will continue making mindful decisions and start paying attention to your surroundings, you will see how you are a part of something instead.
Once you can see yourself being a part of a system other than round, a sense of pride will overcome you. Your progress may have been overshadowed due to subconscious actions receiving clarity, allowing you to comprehend things for what they are. Then, be it your workplace or social circle, you will see how your presence contributes to your surroundings, bringing about peace and contentment.
The essence of being present in your surroundings is critical. It is what allows you to see what your purpose is so you can work mindfully. When you know your purpose, you can grow in life. You will no longer live on a day-to-day basis; rather, your mind will start envisioning progress.
The sense of wanting to do something more will fill your heart with anticipation. And the journey you have been walking on for so long, it will become clear – there is a reason you are walking. Anger may only have inhibited your growth, though a little tweaking your perception will bring meaning to your life and actions.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Introspection - Coaching yourself with a realistic long-term vision (infinite-mindedness) and positive reinforcement to stay on course.
Thinking Partner - A coach or a mentor that can grant you the space to freely talk through your maturing process.
Body + Mind…. Exercising/Working Out
PARKING LOT
Instant Gratification
In the attention economy, we’re all plagued by instant gratification (dopamine rushes). Instant gratification, especially associated with the widespread availability of information, further propels us toward the rush of life. We can view the world at the flick of our thumb.
As much as the internet has diminished gaps globally, it has also offered a glimpse into the various lifestyle and opportunities out there. While this is a good thing, it poses a bigger threat. You see, you are to dream big and go for it. But if that dream is not yours and is based on something as wanting the same thing as another, or because you saw someone else do it, it kind of makes it meaningless.
Your dream is supposed to be your aspiration. It is supposed to be something that makes you happy and is not a result of diffidence. However, with all sorts of available information, people have confused their dreams and want to be based on what others are doing. When that happens, we want to do something similar immediately. So that rush of ours to do something instantly in hopes of feeling a sense of accomplishment immediately is short-lived. And what happens with anything short-lived? The quick fix of instant gratification wears off as quickly as it spurred.
Instant gratification further reduces a person's ability to understand the meaning of something profound and long-term. Life is not meant to be lived on a short-term basis; it affects endless values in various ways. The conclusion is one – disabling the ability to understand and accept meaningful pursuits, resulting in negative financial, social, and health consequences.
Irrespective of it all, our addiction to instant gratification, of wanting to feel the surge of dopamine that comes from acknowledging something short-term, has proven to be ineffective and bad. Again, there are Statistics on social networks and the many problems that have arisen from this. After all, instant gratification takes place from the production of dopamine.
We fail to understand that the rush of dopamine we are seeking is disbanding our capability to understand the importance of meaningful things. Meaningful aspects tend to discipline us into accepting setbacks and victories. Whereas short-lived happiness makes us not understand the importance of something concrete. People who are on a payroll of instant gratification have no issues switching from the source of it. However, the disadvantage here is that when the service provider of this payroll ends, they will have to make a jump as quickly as possible, else they will have to endure the consequences – no finances or meaningful relationships.
People with delayed gratification, or those who simply understand the importance of gratification as a whole, are the ones we see pursuing something in the long run. Such a habit of not seeking something more profound and not just looking at surface-level happiness leads to contentment – and contentment is the mother of peace.
Alternatively, peace is a myth now. People have perceived peace as short-term success and growth, which ends as quickly as it began. Even then, when a person’s short-term growth ends, they simply start looking for it elsewhere than sitting down and working things out….all because of instant gratification.
Hidden Defaults
What instant gratification is doing today is that it inhibits a person’s ability to work on themselves. As a result, people continue to make wrong decisions without realizing it until it is too late.
We are responsible for our actions. Be it the setbacks we face or our problems resulting from our lack of focus or mindless doing. We can never learn if we do not take ownership of our situation. without learning, we will continue to look elsewhere as humanity’s hidden default.
Hidden default should not be about this; looking elsewhere. Instead, it should be about looking within. Looking at yourself, figuring what needs to be amended than discarded. The drawback here with looking elsewhere is that when people suffer or go through something, they should work it out even if it means leaving something. The response, however, should never be immediate resignation from the problem.
The trick to any stunted growth in any aspect of life, which could spring from living in oblivion, is to minimize the suffering and replace it with personal growth opportunities. Do note, I said personal growth opportunities and not personal gain opportunities.
Instant gratification teaches a person to gain than grow. Gain is the art of taking, while growth is the art of accepting. And life only gets better with acceptance. The gain will always leave you void of wanting more, with a feeling of an unquenchable thirst.
The want for more, of thriving on limited happiness, do you think humans are created for this? No. We are simple creatures with a complex system. Our system is construed so that at the end of the day, we are in control of our actions and happiness. Nevertheless, people continue to live without meaning, only to find that the glitter and glamor they were going after has nothing to offer after some time.
It is common to see people chasing after fame as it kicks in dopamine, only to realize they need more of such kicks to keep going daily. People fail to see ‘Fame is not success’ and ‘Success is not a skill.’ Skill is what you learn through experiences, for which you have to be aware of your actions.
To be skilled in life, you have to go through learning experiences that will teach you many things, not because you made content that went viral and brought you instant fame that new viral content will soon wash over.
Do not cave into the modern instant gratification and overlook yourself. Do not lose yourself in the process of wanting fame yet being unaware of your actions.
Be mindful of yourself, of who you are as a person. Once you do that, once you are mindful of who you are and what you have achieved, trust me, you will feel as great as any renowned celebrity out there because you would be aware of your accomplishments.
Nevertheless, it seems that the hustle and bustle we go through today has taken away the very aspect of being mindful. So, if you want to know in-depth how mindlessness, instant gratification, and hidden defaults have been tweaked by your mind subconsciously in a negative way, why don’t you and I begin a journey of setting it right?
If you wish to go unlearn the instant gratification of today, let us follow through this journey of my experiences and lessons that I put forth for your undertaking so that we may deliberately and mindfully mature.
Please provide the link for the WeWork Story. Additionally, these two stories seem overpowering for the introduction Chapter. Let us know if we can add these in chapter 2 onward or where appropriate.
Why is Slow Best?
Think about the last time you enjoyed a moment in time. Maybe you were at an event with friends, traveling with family, or basking in some much needed alone time. Whatever the scenario, the one thing that made the experience that much better is your alertness to it. You stopped to enjoy it. You recognized the moment as special, and although it was fleeting, you slowed down to hold on to it.
This is what it’s like to live inside each moment. As time passes, it doesn’t account for your mindset, or for your attention to detail. Time doesn’t discriminate either. It will keep on passing you by if you allow it to. That’s why it’s so crucial to do whatever it takes to slow it down.
Slowing down time is obviously not a literal concept, though. One can’t simply call a Zack Morris timeout and analyze each situation. Instead, we often bucket this recognition of time into the mindfulness category. After all, what is mindfulness but an opportunity to slow down and actually observe what’s around you.
Slow > Fast Examples
Food:
Slow: Who doesn’t love slow-cooked BBQ?
Fast: Cooking meat too quickly almost always comes served with a hot side of health risks.
Exercise:
Slow: Proper form when connecting your body’s movement with the focus of your mind equates to better repetitions via a more productive routine.
Fast: Aside from 8-minute abs, we have yet to find any routines that yield a better a result with less time and effort.
Creative:
Slow: Lin Manuel-Miranda claims Hamilton took over 10 years to complete. All forms of art are ideated throughout a mindful set of revisions over time. I call this slowetry, and there’s a fine line between it and perfectionism.
Fast: Surely, there are some great examples of quick art that is beautiful, but an artist’s intent leads the way, and much like this book, first versions aren’t usually worth shipping.
Finances:
Slow: Wealth is built over many many years of strategic budgeting and strict spending. Wealth can only be compounded on itself once a foundation is properly built. Bonus points here since building wealth the gradual way feels so unbelievably rewarding when done correctly.
Fast: I’d bucket any and all “get rich quick schemes” into this category. None of them work in any sustainable way you should actually be striving for and the majority of them are either rooted in luck or unethical business practices. Also, the quicker one makes the money in these instances, the sooner the earner tends to lose it. Ironic, isn’t it?
Career:
Slow: Learn as you perform new tasks. Ask those with more experience than you as many questions as you can. Observe the nuances of your role, the company’s culture, and how energy is exchanged in the workplace.
Fast: Sell as much as you can, earn more money, and maintain a complete lack of regard for who or what’s in your way. After all, you’re going to be the next CEO of the company!
Knowledge:
Slow: When you dedicate your life to perpetual learning, there is a priceless insatiability that fuels your curiosity. In other words, you have to deliberately seek wisdom by doing the research or asking the questions.
Fast: There is no information-based medical injection that I know about. Oh wait, I guess there’s those constant sensational news alerts on your phone. If that’s your primary way of learning, stop reading this book (or at least recognize the problem with that for now).
Hiking:
Slow: Enoy the beautiful views on the way to the summit.
Fast: Check the activity off of your list but remember it as physical exhaustion, and not as a wonderful journey.
Driving:
Slow: You’ll get to where you’re going eventually. In fact, if you do the math, the few minutes you’d save by speeding is worth far less than the increased risk profile of driving without consideration for your surroundings.
Fast: Cut off as many people as necessary. Your time is more important than everyone else’s.
Treading Water
I’m admittedly not the best swimmer in the world. My best stroke is the breast stroke, but that’s for other reasons.
I’ve had horrific, but funny (to everyone else) experiences on the lake with family and friends. So whenever everyone was plunging in the cold water for a mid-day refresher, I was always hesitant.
It took several times, over many years to realize this, but whenever I jumped into the freezing water, I was much better off remaining still and staying calm.
After so many times hitting the frigid water and being exacerbated by it, I felt there were no other options but to panic and flail about. Imagine a grown man quasi-doggy-paddling with the look of fear itself on his face. In the deep water, there was nowhere for me to go. And being breathless from the cold meant I had to breathe heavier.
But each of these experiences ended up becoming the perfect metaphors.
Whenever I flailed about in desperation, I was creating more waves around me. Those waves were then making it even more difficult to stay afloat.
Ah… the realization.
Calm equates to buoyancy.
It’s quite simple to zoom out and inject this simple premise into everything we do.
Anxiety is merely uncontrolled excitement.
Panic is a metabolic response to the unknown.
Once the mind can harness these sensations and trust the self enough to behave accordingly on your body’s behalf, we float.
Sure, you’ll float in the water. But soon enough you’ll start to hover above all situations in your life and calmly respond to them… without any unnecessary overreactions to stimuli, increases in blood pressure, or dangerous battles with spiking stress-levels.
After all, everything will be all right in the end. If it doesn’t seem all right, it’s not the end.
Slow Growth Organizations
I’m sure your company, or employer, has some sort of mission and vision statement. It’s a pretty common “check the box” sort of requirement for organizations these days. But does your company have a 5 and 10 year plan? Better yet, does it have a 100-year plan?
While I’m being somewhat fecetious about a 100-year plan, the point here is that anything good takes time and effort. In the context of an organization, “good” should equate to sustainability through repeatability. Simplistic meaningful growth, just like anything else during the development process, needs to be nurtured and cared for correctly.
We’ve seemed to transform business culture into the opposite of this. Instead of simple value-based processes being perfected and repeated, and all team members being encouraged to participate equally, we’ve built “winner takes all” cultures anchored in “do whatever it takes” philosophies.
A perfect example of this is the Silicon Valley tech adage, “Move Fast and Break Stuff.” Again, thinking more practically, I’m not sure mother would appreciate us walking into her home and haphazardly bumping into all of her furniture, breaking a few lamps and appliances, and considering it a success. Someone has to pay for the damages. And when you move that abruptly, the largest invoice is being issued to those participating in the neverending race to tech success.
Move Slow and Fix Things
My simplest definition of an organization is “an entity that offers value to consumers.” While this may seem overly simplified, it has merit as a pivotal starting point to a broader way of looking at the impact an organization can have on both its consumers and the world at large.
It all starts with wrapping the company around a profound purpose and disseminating that through its people.
In turn, these workers will feel their time and effort being reciprocated through fulfillment. This is the type of work fulfillment we all strive to achieve yet has become so elusive.
Slowing down to measure the distance between today and where the company’s purpose takes them in ten years is one of the best investments a leader can make. Questions like “why are we doing this?” and “is this in the best interest of society?” can and should take center stage when building out a long-term plan.
The result? These fulfilled workers, that now have more energy reserves than ever before, will stick with the organization and learn insatiably alongside their equal and relatable colleagues.
The best part is all that money saved on brooms, mops, and vaccuums. When you don’t break things, you have more time to simplify and attempt to perfect everything else in your organization.
Slow Growth Leadership
There are a handful of provocative stories that shed light on the problems with the high-growth startup mentality.
Spoiler alert: None of them end well.
But for those involved, I’m sure it was quite exciting. Shallow and empty, but fun.
Take WeWork for example. The “too big to fail” mindset where perpetual growth is the goal has proven to be faulty at best. Think about hiring in these situations. Think about the culture that’s being forgotten in the haze of it all.
Put simply, when you move that fast, you DO BREAK THINGS. And when you don’t have the maturity to assess and measure the distance between your truth and your vision, the whole thing spirals out of control.
Perhaps you are the type of leader that subscribes to Reid Hoffman’s “Blitzscaling” concept of growth hacking your way to inevitable success. If that excites you more than knowing your business will definitely continue to impact lives ten years (and beyond) into the future, then again, drop this book.
There is a place, and sometimes a need, for high-growth mode. It’s not all bad. But the point here is that it has to be built on sustainable, or even regenerative, foundations. Soil that will grow the strongest roots.
Patience as a Competitive Advantage
“I need that report on my desk by the end of the day!” We’ve all heard these sorts of demands, whether in our own workplaces or in movies.
The unfortunate fact is that this type of urgency has been proven time and again to yield far less favorable outcomes than the alternatives.
When pushed against the wall, a worker’s response is initially panic. Thoughts like “I need to get this done or I’ll lose my job” become the stimulant for the work.
While urgency certainly can establish needed action, it limits the creative space required for optimal output.
So instead of methodically laying out the plan for the project, assigning roles based on fit and personality, we’re being asked to mindlessly panic and check a box as quickly as possible.
That’s exhausting. And as I mentioned, unproductive.
Distracted by Urgency
Let your competition get swallowed by this perpetual urgency. You? You build a culture that rewards patience and acts according to infinite mindsets.
A patient organization is a lightweight operation. No panic leads to freedom of thought. Insatiability turns into endless passion to add value wherever it can be applied. Infinite-mindedness becomes a sustainable path to gradual and perpetual success.
It took me a while to realize that business is never a zero sum game. If it feels that way, you’re either doing something wrong or competing in the wrong industry.
The truth is - there is enough success to go around. Better yet, the longer you float calmly in the water, the more opportunities you’ll have to capitalize on the important opportunities that will come your way.
Over the years, I’ve learned to appreciate that every missed opportunity in the short-term tends to yield exponentially more in the long-term. That’s because acknowledging that there are always opportunities all around us makes us understand the importance of finding the right fit for all situations.
Finding the right fit typically means not saying yes to every revenue-generating opportunity. Rather, it’s ensuring your organization will provide the most value and benefit possible regardless of the circumstance.
Thist ype of stance is a mature and transparent way of doing business. Mature because you’re always putting purpose and ethics before financial gain. Transparent because you’d genuinely prefer to educate non-customers than land a new one that won’t receive maximum benefit from you.