The bravery and determination we use when advising others should always be kept in check by the fact that when we are in a similar situation we tend to act much more cautiously and pragmatically.
A great advisor is one that helps you walk through the different options and choose the one that is the best fit for yourself.
Try not to have two things requiring your immediate attention at the same time.
Always choose one. Keep it front and centre as you dedicate your full energy to it. Push the other (or the others) to the background, silencing its pressing requests. Once you have completed a meaningful part of what you have selected first, only then move your full attention to what is next. Repeat.
Sometimes you are so busy that things keep taking turns in your field of attention. You complete a task, move on to a second item, go back to the first to continue to the next milestone, begin with a third to take it to completion, switch to the second to progress it some more, and so on. If feels like you are dancing.
That’s the incredible feeling of working in sequence.
Can you put boundaries around what happens in a given day? Can you keep it enclosed in the specific situation, the momentary emotion, the sudden thought?
Professional setbacks don’t have to spill into your personal life. A rejection or even a big failure do not have to determine your next actions or take away from your motivation. Someone being rude does not mean that every person you will meet from there onwards will be deserving a cold stare.
What happens is in the moment. The story we build around it can stay with us for a long time.
What happens is immutable. The story we build around it can be shaped however we prefer.
It’s a superpower to reclaim.
Success is never binary. And very rarely you land on a 0 or on a 1.
Most often, you find yourself somewhere in between.
Understand this to appreciate the progress you have made, as well as the path you still have ahead of you.
It’s rarely as bad as we think it is.
It’s rarely as bad as we think it will be.
We put stakes on the things that happen to us and we never pause to think that it is us who determine how important outcomes are.
Is failing at a job truly that disastrous?
Is delivering a project late really so determinant of the company’s future success?
Is expressing our doubts or asking a difficult question truly going to jeopardize the relationship with a friend?
If a behavior is repeated across time, it is wise to take note and try to address it. But if it happens only once, is it really going to be that bad?
Probably not.
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