Tag: self-improvement

The narrative killer

Fabrizio2 Comments

A good way to stop being busy is to avoid saying that you are.

“How are you?”
“Busy.”

I did this many times myself, and it’s not really a nice way to move the conversation forward. Even more, busy is the narrative killer: if you repeat it long enough, that’s the the only story you and others will hear about yourself. It is a sticky one, very difficult to get rid of, even after some time has passed and, to be honest, you are no longer as busy as you were the first time you said it.

“How are you?”
“I am excited as I have just received confirmation that we will go ahead with the project.”
“I am disappointed as I have been told we are not moving forward with the hiring process.”
“I am exhausted as yesterday had to work all evening on the presentation for next week.”
“I am really looking forward to join your team meeting next month and present what we are working on.”

Busy is a common safeplace, and it shades us for taking responsibility for how we actually feel and what we are actually doing that is important. Stop saying you are busy and you will find yourself taking some time to discover how you actually are.

“How are you?”
“I am a little overworked at the moment, but it is fine, as I am working on things I love. What about you?”

 

I still go “ouch!”

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When things go bad, I still go “ouch!”.

When my daughter (rarely) or my son (more often) throw a tantrum, I still go “ouch!”. When my work gets rejected, the neighbour does not say “hi!”, a stranger cuts my way, the weather is not the way I had planned it to be, a bee flies a little too close to me, the canteen has nothing decent to offer, or somebody close tells me something that hurts, I still go “ouch!”. And sometimes, I go a little beyond “ouch!”.

What meditation is gently teaching me, though, is to stop there. To understand that disappointment, anger, anxiety, frustration, fear, loneliness are feelings that can be identified, appreciated and let go. That it is ok to complain (a little bit) when the grand scheme of things is not in line with your desires, and that you can still continue living and doing just as you were a moment earlier. And that no, nobody is plotting against my happiness or success.

Meditation is a great gift, and if you are as inclined as I am to see the dark side of things, it is going to help you appreciate that as well as the brightness that is just few steps ahead.

Multimessing

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You can do different things at the same time, yet chances are none of them will turn out to be done particularly well.

Sure you can do the dishes while talking to the kids, or prepare food while talking on the phone, or drive while listening to a podcast. You’ll be a lot more tired in the end, but for basic and repetive actions, stuff our body does basically automatically, it is possible to add something else on top.

Try though doing the dishes while your son is talking to you about a deep matter that bothers him; or impress your family with a totally new recipe while your mother is guiding you through the schedule for her next visit; or navigate the streets of a neighborhood you have never been to before while the music is on.

In those cases you’ll have to tune something down, possibly stop doing it completely. It’s exactly when you are doing important work that multitasking becomes a myth.

If you are working on a report to present during the next board meeting, and you also answer a bunch of e-mails you’ve received in the meantime, send a text to your wife to say you’ll be late, and get back to your colleague on Slack, most likely some of that greatly suffered in quality (I bet it was the report).

Work as if you are not the 2%, and allocate enough time for things that deserve your full attention. Do not get distracted, be brutal when needed, and you’ll finish faster and have time for the rest.

You lead the way

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If you set goals early on in life, you are more likely to be successful. A famous study at Yale University showed that out of the class of 1953, the 3% of students that had their ideas clear at graduation collected 97% of the wealth of the whole class two decades later. Actually, they did not.

Bias is almost impossible to avoid, but there are ways around it. For examples, few decades ago, orchestras started doing “blind auditions”. That is to say musicians who are under scrutiny are asked to perform behind a screen, so that examiners would not be influenced by their gender. The chance for women to pass the first stages of the audition has increased by 50% thanks to this simple trick to keep bias in check. In fact, it did not.

To become an expert at anything, you need to practice for 10,000 hours. Not really, to be fully honest.

What do we do when something we strongly believe in, something that is motivating us, that is driving our work, a practice that is making us feel better, a recommendation that has given us the strength to leap, is proven wrong?

We keep on going, doing our work day after day, because in the end there is only one way that is going to help you achieve what you want to achieve. Yours.

Amateurs and professionals

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“Amateur” is from latin “amator”, that means “lover”, “the one who loves”.

“Professional”, which has the same root of “profession”, is from latin “profiteri”, that means “declare publicly”, and it has for a long time denoted the vow made on entering a religious order.

The difference between amateur and professional is in their roots.

An amateur is somebody who loves something and likes to practice it.

A professional, on the other hand, is somebody who is deeply passionate about something, so much so they devote their life to it.

You can do things as an amateur (many things, possibly) or as a professional (few things, probably). The difference is in the amount of effort and work you put into it.