Tag: problems

Empty shells

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Have you ever written down a list of the things you do?

Particularly when you feel overwhelmed, it is useful to write down on paper the things you do regularly. Emails to write, reports to compile, meetings to attend, errands to run, people to talk to, tasks to complete, projects to finalize, and so on.

Then look at the list and ask yourself: what can I delegate?

Sure, the first instinct would probably be to say nothing! But if you think long enough, if you weight the items against your purpose and who you want to be, if you ask others what they expect of you and what they will measure you by, I am confident you will end up with quite a lot you can give away.

Most of the things you do are clutter. They give you the impression of being important, and by extension they make you feel important, but they are merely empty shells very difficult to crack. And the wonderful thing is that if you trust others and ask around, if you become generous, you will find somebody for whom those things are relevant, important, purposeful.

Make the match.

Most of us are so stuck on the short-cycles of urgency that it’s difficult to even imagine changing our longer-term systems.

Amazingly, this simple non-hack (in which you spend the time to actually avoid the shortcuts that have been holding you back) might be the single most effective work you do all year.

Seth Godin, A different urgency

You stay

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When you are in a bad mood, your productivity goes down. The quality of your work is not as good as usual, even getting started feels painful. You are cranky, you put negative narratives first, you fail to appreciate what good there is.

Being in a bad mood also poisons everything around you. And most importantly, it makes people in your life be in a bad mood to.

There is no remedy to being in a bad mood. It just happens.

The only sensible thing to do is put all the residual resources into breaking the direct link between the mood and yourself. Indeed, often when you are in a bad mood, you look at yourself as a bad person too. That’s dangerous.

Moods come and go. You stay, often improved. If you can appreciate this difference more, nothing will stop you.

To meet an emotion is first to acknowledge it and then to feel it enough to get the message it carries. The feeling carries the message but it isn’t the message, and we won’t get the message without feeling at least some of the emotion. The message, of course, is very likely to be a form of emerging self-knowledge.

Dan Oestreich, How To Meet A Strong Emotion

The stranger

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Every group has its own rules. And when you belong to the group, there are two things you have to do.

First, you need to figure out what the rules are. This might seem trivial and simple, but actually it often takes time to dive deep into what the group cares about and how stuff gets done. Tension and crisis accelerate the process of understanding, as there is no better time to appreciate the set of values of a group than when shit hits the fan.

Figuring out the rules happens over time, it is a continuous effort. And you can’t wait for it to be over before asking yourself if what the group believes in aligns with what you believe in. Are you at home, or are you a stranger?

Now, if the answer is that you are a stranger, you need to be able to appreciate the fact that setting out to change the rules is only one option. It is often easier and possible to go and find a group whose rules better align with yours.

One way or the other, staying in the group that makes of you the stranger is probably not something you want to consider. But you know that already, don’t you?

Wandering

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We are typically busy when we do not know where we are headed.

And I am not talking about the type of busy that involves doing work, but rather the type that makes our head hurt, that keeps us awake at night, that makes us nervous and anxious, that flattens everything into a state of urgency, that leaves us moving from one thing to the next.

This type of busy that is wandering.

Having a purpose will not allow you to be busy. You perfectly know what matters and what does not, what will take you closer and what will delay your arrival, what is an investment of resources and what is a drain.

Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.

Zig Ziglar

The third reason

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What is the third reason why someone does something?

The first reason is almost instinctive. It is generally about us.

The second reason is a mirror. We often make it about them.

The third reason might open up some empathy, as it has the power to be about the context.

This is how it goes.

A colleague does not answer your email requesting help.

The first reason: they do not want to help me.

The second reason: they are selfish and only care about their work.

The third reason: it is the end of the quarter, they might be busy.

Another example.

A company is not coming back to you regarding your application.

The first reason: they have rejected me.

The second reason: their HR is lazy and unprofessional.

The third reason: they have a recruitment policy in place and they are simply following it.

Thinking through the third reason makes two things possible: it moves us from a natural tendency to look at the world as if we were at the centre of it, and it builds some rules that are actually applicable to everyone. It allows more compassion for others and for ourselves. It unloads us of a burden.

Make an effort to get to the third reason. After a while, that will become your new nature.