One time is better than no time.
Two times is better than one time.
Three times is better than two times.
And so on.
That’s the great thing about showing up, consistently, time after time. It’s continuous, incremental progress.
Of course, you can also try to go from no time to ten times, but that’s probably going to take a lot of your resources. And it’s not the way you can build habits.
Perhaps it’s because it’s Christmas. Perhaps somebody has done something nice for you. Perhaps you have just gotten an unexpected praise, or a long-waited message. Perhaps it’s the energy you are getting from having finally started that project you have been wondering about for so long. Perhaps it’s your family, your friends, your loved one. Or perhaps it’s just because that’s who you are, and you have always known it.
But if you got in the mindset of giving these days, if you are being kind and helpful, if you are saying “I see your point” and “That is interesting” more often than “You are wrong” and “That is stupid”, then just remember that there is no reason why you should not practice that all year round. Even when things are tough. Particularly when things are tough.
Merry Christmas.
Managing projects is easy, managing people is difficult.
And that’s not because projects always succeed or achieve what they were supposed to achieve, but because they are made of tasks, timelines, deadlines, deliverables, priorities. All things that, one way or the other, even in the most difficult circumstances, are defined and controllable.
People are not.
People have no limit and they cannot be controlled. They have values, feelings, triggers. They establish relationships and break them. They are motivated and demotivated. They need to talk and to be listened to. They want to progress, take on new challenges, and they panic in the face of change.
We know how people are, because we are people too. And that’s what scares us and makes managing people so difficult.
Exactly the reason why, in a situation of crisis or uncertainty, most management resorts to assigning more tasks, asking for more visibility, setting stricter deadlines, and cracking down on inefficiencies.
Because managing projects is easy, while managing people is difficult.
Putting somebody on a pedestal is a bad thing for you and for them.
For you, because you are taking distance from an ideal that you should, instead, make your own. You say things like: I’ll never be like you; You are much better than I am; I could never do that. And by saying it, you both set a lower bar for yourself and build a perfect excuse for your next failure.
For them, because you are holding them to an unrealistic standard. It might be that they have found some specific ways to manage the situation, but for sure they battle with the same demons, have the same uncertainty, feel the same fear of failure as you do. They need to be able to express all that, instead of hiding it to adhere to the idea you might have.
At some point, you have to let go.
Not of things, but of your attitude towards things. Most of what happens is made worst by what we think about it, what we feel about it, what we say about it – to ourselves and to others. That’s what we need to get rid of, the part we have to let go.
Do it sooner rather than later, and you can start the process of change.
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