If you constantly doubt what you do, people will start doubting you as well.
If you play down compliments all the time, people will stop complimenting you.
If you point at your flaws and the skills you lack, people will turn their heads in that direction as well.
The fact is, if you do all that to stay in the background, modesty is not a good strategy.
Try empowering others instead.
A checklist always gets the job done.
It accounts for rules and processes, it ensures that timelines are met, and it guarantees that no critical step is forgotten.
But what a checklist does not do is to consider the emotions of those involved. The stress it puts on them, the uncertainty between one step and the next, the guessing that tends to fill in the gaps.
For that, there’s no checklist that can help.
You’ll just have to be human.
Some people mistake performance with loyalty. It’s common in sport, for example, where players are good only for as long as they wear the right jersey. And it’s common in business, where employees get rewarded for tenure and compliance.
But while performance can be fluctuating over a period of time and in context, there is no correlation with loyalty.
One could actually argue that the capacity to be in different teams, to learn from different environments, to deliver under different circumstances, tends to increase and strengthen performance.
So, when mixing performance with loyalty, what we are really doing is judging the worth of our cause, of our principles, in a sense of our very own performance. It’s one of those cases where we let the decisions and opinions of others affect how we think we are doing.
And we should try to never let that happen.
As we grow up, we get used to listening to others.
Parents, peers, friends, colleagues, bosses, partners, relatives, lurkers, fans, and haters.
All of them with their opinion of how it should be, what we should do, why we should worry, where we should go next.
But as we grow up, we also need to remember that part of that growing up is owning our own opinion. Choosing our path, unapologetically, and living according to our feelings, values, purpose.
We cannot outsource our life.
Two things I noticed when running on the treadmill.
First, the first few minutes are a real pain. Legs are heavy, breathing irregular, body tense. Makes me want to give up right away.
Second, when I focus on the screen with pace, distance, and time, running feels a lot more difficult – mentally and physically – than when I focus on the wall 10 meters ahead of me.
The point being.
Getting started is rarely pleasant. And when you eventually get started, focusing too much on what you see right in front of you will make you lose perspective and vision, therefore decreasing your motivation.
You've got this 