Tag: resistance

When asking for help

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If you ask for help, the worst thing that could happen is that the person or the group you are asking to will not be receptive and you will not get any help. Your situation does not really get any worse.

It’s the same as having money to invest with only the potential gain to risk. Worst case scenario, you walk with your initial sum.

We often avoid asking for help for the fear of being judged, of letting others know we do not know, of feeling inferior and not being able to give back. And yet the benefit is so vast we should not think twice.

Also, it’s a powerful way to build networks.

Shit

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We all go through the same shit.

That does not mean our pain, despair, fights, passions are all the same, indistinct reasons why we feel miserable. It means that most likely others can relate to it. Can understand. Can empathize. And it also means that we are not alone, not in our suffering.

So, the first thing to do is talk about it. Reach out to a friend, a family member, a doctor, somebody in this deep sea of misunderstanding we can relate to. Talk honestly and don’t hold back.

And the second thing to do, arguably the most difficult, is to listen when we are on the receiving end of a request of help.

Bending the rules

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We are all subject to the pitfalls of “this time will be different”.

Sometimes ago, I was listening to a podcast featuring Guy Kawasaki. Guy promotes a pretty interesting and well known framework for presentations – the 10/20/30 rule. That is to say 10 slides, in 20 minutes, with text on the slides set at a minimum of 30 points.

Despite people knowing about his “rule”, he was amazed by the fact they were still pitching ideas to him with presentations that did not respect any of those precepts. When the host asked why he thought that happened, he said that people always tend to think that the rule does not apply to them: “Sure, I know about the rule, but that does not apply to me. My idea is the most interesting, what I have to say is incredibly powerful, my insights are superb. This time will be different, I promise.”

It turns out, it almost never is.

A slightly different version of the pitfall is “this time alone”.

Working with start-ups, I have often heard the mantra: “this is not who we are, we’ll do it this time alone, and when things will start getting traction, we’ll finally be able to act the way we really, deeply, sincerely are”. Of course, if you are eventually lucky enough to get some traction, you’ll have forgotten and most likely shit on how you really, deeply, sincerely are. No reason to go about searching for excuses.

Some rules are set for you, some you get to set.

I am not promoting absolute obedience and compliance, yet we should be aware of these traps and be completely honest about a fact. When we start bending the rules, chances are we are starting to bend ourselves as well. We ought to make sure we are doing that in a direction we’ll feel confident and proud about the morning after.

Peak performance

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The message of Peak Performance, by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness, is as simple to understand as it is difficult to apply in practice.

Stress + rest = growth

That is to say, if you alternate periods of intense work, work that takes you a little beyond your limits, yet not too much, with periods of relax and rest, your potential will increase. And this is true both for athletes and knowledge workers.

The illusion of “always busy“, then, is not only bad for your narrative and your relationships, but also for your possibility to deliver your best work and to incrementally and progressively increase what “best” is to you.

If you think at all the times you came up with a solution to your problems, or a new idea, or a different approach to a tricky situation during moments of break (in the shower, during a walk outside, while playing with your kids), the message should easily resonate with you. On the other hand, think about how often you have managed to overcome a difficult situation by continuing to work relentlessly. Never, right?

And yet, we often fall in that trap. Sometimes because of peer pressure, sometimes because we feel guilty, more often simply because we are not sure what we are doing is good work, and we try to compensate by doing a lot. We end up being over-stressed, and this is never a very good idea.

Stress can be positive, triggering desirable adaptations in the body; or stress can be negative, causing grave damage and harm. The effects of stress depend almost entirely on the dose.

The book is full of examples of high performers, in different areas, and all seem to respect the growth equation that is the foundation of Peak Performance. And on top of that, they have pretty rigid and established routines.

Routines help keeping you focused on what you are doing in different moments of the day. They leave little space for excuses and resistance, they force you to show up and to be present with body and mind.

There’s a pretty good example on how to apply this principle for day-to-day work: the authors suggest to split your days in chunks of 50 to 90 minutes (depending on the type of work), followed by 7 to 20 minutes of rest.

In the words of the writer James Clear, “The single greatest skill in any endeavor is doing the work. Not doing the work that is easy for you. Not doing the work that makes you look good. Not doing the work when you feel inspired. Just doing the work.”

The final part of the book is dedicated to a very important part of performance: purpose. There’s quite a lot of evidence that having a purpose that “transcends ourselves”, that goes beyond the immediate, short-term gains, makes us bring out the best work we could possibly do. And more than that, it increases our capability to accept stress, widening the growth leaps in the equation.

In situations that feel scary or overwhelming, our brain—our central governor, our ego, our “self”—automatically tries to protect us from failure. It shuts us down and tells us to turn in the other direction. Even if failure doesn’t mean physical injury, our ego doesn’t like emotional injury, either—it doesn’t want to risk getting embarrassed, so it ushers us down the safe route. It’s only when we transcend our “self” that we can break through our self-imposed limits.

 

On getting stuck

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One week ago I got stuck.

I had 98 blog post published, and was about to write number 99. The night before, I had prepared a LinkedIn article to celebrate post number 100. I was quite proud of the result, and I felt on a roll with writing. I started thinking that perhaps I could regularly write longer articles, both on LinkedIn and Medium. Who knows, with a bit of luck I could also publish on some of the local webzines, just to have an additional outlet for the need to share my ideas.

And I got stuck.

It was the first time in more than three months writing every day I felt like I had a completely blank mind. No ideas. I started writing two or three times, on two or three different topics. Some paragraphs, I actually got a post almost complete, and then I realized it was not good enough. I deleted it and started from scratch. The blinking cursor was a terrible countdown.

I breathed. I remembered the reasons why I am doing this. And I took a break. I also told my wife I was stuck, and that helped elaborating the frustration and the dissappointed. After about twenty minutes, I went back to the computer and I wrote blog post number 99.

There are so many elements of resistance in this brief moment of panic. I had set an unimportant target that put pressure on me (the blog post 100 meant I could publish my first article on LinkedIn); suddenly, I had started overworrying about the quality of my posts, and of course I had immediately turned hypercritical (the deleted post would have probably been good enough on a different day); and eventually, my mind shut down completely, refusing to produce any idea to put into words.

These type of moments happen all the time you have to use consistently your brain to achieve something that matters. Be aware and kind to yourselves, and remember that more often than not, taking a deep breath and a break will get you unstuck.