The best way to be in charge of something is to embrace the mess.
Of course, you should be committed and you should deeply care. You should bring your A-game and make sure that everybody involved can bring their own too. You should plan and execute and iterate and educate and plan some more.
And then, when chaos strikes, as it certainly will, you should be ready to throw everything in the air and play with the mess of the new setting.
It might not only be the best way, but also the only one.
We are bad at estimating and predicting. Our gut feeling is nothing more than a feeling. We have opinions and ideas that are, for the most part, pretty average. In almost every situation, there is at least someone else who is more prepared, more qualified, more worthy than we are. When we think we are giving advice, we are actually mostly telling others to do what we have not found the courage to do ourselves. We are different and unique, yet not necessarily better, more prepared, or smarter.
When we remain grounded, it is much easier to appreciate ourselves and others.
When you sit down to do your work, start by deciding what is the #1 thing you want to get done today.
Is that a presentation?
A 3,000-word blog post?
The new LinkedIn campaign?
The quarterly report for the next board meeting?
Some estimates for next year?
A meaningful piece of a bigger project?
Whatever it is, start the day by picking the #1 thing, the one that will make that day a success. Take regular breaks as you go about it, but don’t stop your concentration by jumping to other stuff before you have that completed.
That’s what will give a real, tangible, and consistent sense of progress.
What is joy?
What is commitment?
What is love?
What is friendship?
You can take these questions from the top-down. You take a definition – the one your parents gave you, the one your culture preaches, the one your past taught you – and you try to find what it is that take you as close to it as possible. As these are ideals, it’s difficult to seek them and make them real. It’s usually disappointing.
You can also take these questions from the bottom-up. You look at your life – what is given to you, what you are taking with your skills and attitude, what you give out to others – and label the individual items with the term that best fits.
You say, “this is joy” after a genuine laugh. And you seek more of it.
You say, “this is commitment” after some hard work. And you seek more of it.
You say, “this is love” after holding your partner in an intimate embrace. And you seek more of it.
You say, “this is friendship” after a 2-hour chat with your heart wide open. And you seek more of it.
This is it.
You are dealt some cards and it’s up to you to make of them whatever you pursuit. Change will follow, and it begins with you noticing that you already have the ideal life.
There is a lot of difference between spending time and energy and resources on something you are passionate about, and spending the exact same amount of time and energy and resources on something you don’t care about.
In the first case, no matter how much you give, you will always find a bit more. You will feel recharged even after a full day of intense activity. In fact, the other stuff and the people in your life will most likely benefit from your positive attitude and adrenaline. Just because you are committed to something you love.
In the second case, the opposite is true. Even ten minutes of the activity will drain you. You will mostly complain, find issues with everything and everyone, and that attitude will spill to everything else, and everyone else, in your life.
So, the trick is this.
Do something for long enough to get committed and passionate about it, and reduce the distractions that make you feel miserable.
Easy. Not simple.
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