Category: self-help

If, when, and how

FabrizioLeave a comment

In life, as in business, it is often not a matter of if.

Things will happen that will mess with your plans, disturb your tranquillity, challenge your assumptions, force you to review your ideas.

On the other end, it is pointless to make it a matter of when.

You can’t control change, and timing might turn into an excuse to not do things. Tomorrow, when the right situation will present itself, after we have completed this, just one more time, and so on.

It turns out it is almost always a matter of how.

You are stronger if you have a practice, if you have a strategy, if you have a purpose, if you have a culture. Not because things will not happen right when you are not expecting them, but because you have something to step onto for the following leap.

It is always the right time for doing.

Absolute

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If we want to grow, we need feedback. And if we want to learn from feedback, we need to stop taking it as absolute.

It is human to want to protect one’s work, reputation, identity. But that often leads us to see feedback as totally negative (or totally positive). We need to be able to identify the pieces of feedback we can use to improve and grow, while at the same time leaving out the pieces of feedback that are irrelevant or that we do not believe in (yet?).

Start thinking about who is giving the feedback and how much of what they are saying you do agree with. Receiving feedback is a muscle that can be trained.

Step aside

Fabrizio1 Comment

Most of the pressure we feel is of our own making.

When we manage to take a step aside and ask important questions (why do I want this? what do I need? what is the worst thing that could happen?) we find the space to breath.

People in our lives are fine with attention and kindness. All we add on top of that is up to us.

Next level

FabrizioLeave a comment

If after a run your muscle don’t hurt and you are not short on breath, it probably means you have not exercised hard enough. You are ready for the next level.

Similarly, if you do not feel like you are a fraud and you are letting everyone down with what you do daily, it probably means you are way within your comfort level. You are ready for the next level.

We grow with challenges. And we should seek them regularly to continue our development.

Your loss

FabrizioLeave a comment

Writing things down, making a public commitment, pinning an item on the calendar.

To some these actions mean being one step farther to actually doing.

It is a form of resistance. It does not matter if we are in charge or if someone else is in charge. The very same moment we are saying “I am going to do it”, an almost unconscious reaction is triggered that goes the opposite way: “I am not going to do it”.

The only cure is to deeply understand that no one cares.

Your boss might be disappointed, they will still be your boss. Your company might lose some money, they will most likely survive. Your friends are going to stop relying on you, and go find other friends. Your project will probably be delayed, and your audience is going to seek something else to give attention to.

The only one person who has deeply to lose from this behavior is you.