A lesson I’m currently learning is that my job is less about looking for the next mountain to scale, and more about making a habit of putting one foot in front of the other (in the right place), over and over and over…
It’s so easy to get distracted.
If the level of success and influence you’re after were easy to attain, it would be crowded at the top.
If all it took was determination and hard work then again, there would be scores of people waiting for you at the finish lines.
Throngs of successful doers who stuck it out and did what it took.
But the place you deserve to be…the place that you’re scared to dream about sometimes…the place that makes you blush when you picture yourself there…well, that’s going to take more than hard work.
It may seem like it will take a year of long nights, but it might actually take six months of short ones.
You might feel like it’s going to take you getting to a place where everything you touch is fulfilling and refreshing, but it might just require you to always be doing something worth doing.
It may seem like becoming a machine and exhibiting hyper-productivity during work hours is required, but it might take a purposeful and deliberate pace that intentionally ignores and slips on some things.
In short, I think the road to where you deserve to be is paved with the very lessons that tell you what’s needed in order to scale the mountain (if you’re open to seeing them).
Not a Dale Carnegie book or a workflow optimization course, bit rather an awareness and commitment to improvement that transforms you with each lesson.
I’ve gotta be honest.
I’m not the best technologist. I’m sometimes in over my head, and I frequently resort to Google and reference material when solving problems.
When I used to be employed as an IT Consultant, I wasn’t particularly inspired by the work I was doing. It was a pretty stressful period of time — particularly when there were weekly layoffs within the company — because I didn’t have a real specialization.
To make matters worse, I wasn’t motivated to develop one. The challenges weren’t interesting, the politics were annoying, and the bureaucracy was suffocating. So I definitely would have been a wonderful candidate for termination.
When I transitioned into full-time freelancing, I did web design and development to pay the bills. It eventually turned into consulting, teaching, speaking and exotic dancing on weekends the like, but WordPress work comprised the bulk of my income.
I wasn’t a code maestro, nor was I a particularly enlightened developer. But I took care of people, I gave a damn, and I shipped.
Mostly though, people just liked me.
I’m under no illusions about the quality of some of my work, or the (sometimes awful) project management skills I brought to the table.
The truth is that I avoided being laid off because I was liked by those in a position to put me on the chopping block. The truth is that I never needed to look for work as a freelancer because people liked working with me.
As a matter of fact, I often met people who looked for opportunities and excuses to work with me. I found it humbling and gratifying, if not a bit undeserved.
I say all that to say this: being well-liked helps. It won’t save you if your work is shoddy, or if you’re not consistent, but it helps.
It’s not about schmoozing or being charming, it’s really about just being human.
It’s tempting to pretend that things are easier or harder than they are. Everyone loves a good story, right?
The magic of your story isn’t a contrived struggle or feigned competence, though — it’s how the authenticity resonates with others.
And even when the story you tell is accurate, care must be taken to communicate what represents where you are at the time.
We appreciate your witty one-liners and practiced speech, but what we’re really looking for is confirmation that you’re human.
Confirmation that we can see ourselves in you.
Confirmation that we, just like you, can achieve the things we set out to do.
People who remain on top of their responsibilities are able to plan, prepare, forecast, and decide. Options can be considered thoroughly before courses of action are decided upon, and the consequences of decisions can be thoughtfully considered after the fact.
People who are chronically behind react to situations, find themselves stressed out, have no time to prepare properly, and are in control of very little in their lives. Mistakes (which come frequently when scrambling to always be “a little less behind”) sting, but real lessons aren’t learned in the wake of disasters because the next one is already looming on the horizon.
It pays to get (and stay) ahead.
I’m a big fan of outlandish and unrealistic goals, but it makes sense to be a bit pragmatic with them from time to time. One example is striving for perfection in all things.
This isn’t the same as striving for zero errors in the production of widgets, or striving for 100% customer satisfaction; I’m talking about striving for infallibility.
Instead of striving to be without fault (which I suppose is a noble goal, but far loftier than my mortal brain can manage), it might be worthwhile to strive to be better every day.
It’s a deceptively simple goal, but it’s decidedly not easy to consistently implement. It also requires that we’re specific about what we’re improving.
It stops being fun after a while (how do you continuously optimize your finances anyway? who wants to call companies to negotiate a $30 discount on a deductible every year, for example…), but we can start with something we want to improve, determine what success looks like, and map out the steps to reach the goal.
By the way, how are those New Years Resolutions coming along? 🙂
Studying great leaders (both living and deceased) is proving to be an interesting and worthwhile endeavor for me.
When I see traits in myself that I possess and lack (as illustrated by the stories I read), I’m able to 1) determine what philosophies and methodologies resonate with me and 2) make mid-course corrections when I find valuable nuggets.
There are many leaders I admire, and just as many whose lives I wouldn’t want under any circumstances. Exposure to an array of perspectives and personalities inform the way I see myself being remembered, respected, and how I’d feel about myself during quiet moments of reflection.
I don’t think it’s impossible to grow into a respectable and effective leader without spending time on things like this, but I’m inclined to stack the deck in my favor.
And besides…many of these stories read better than fiction.
I think my generation has a hard time dealing with criticism.
That’s too bad. Many would kill for the guidance and wisdom we ignore and reject because we can’t see past the packaging.
You might be a surgeon, a writer, or an engineer professionally.
But who you are? You’re a winner.
Under different circumstances, you might have become an attorney, an NFL head coach, or a classically-trained pianist. My hunch is that you would be just as successful. Winners win.
So fret not at the thought of layoff or things out of your control, you possess everything you need to overcome and succeed and prosper.
Not all of us are at the point in our career where we only do things that interest us. This is why it’s called “work.”
So when your overflowing inbox is calling and spreadsheets must be updated (a particularly unpleasant task for me), what keeps you going? What motivate me wont necessarily motivate you.
We often try to borrow lessons and insights from others without doing the necessarily self-reflection. This results in a faux motivation that doesn’t last when faced with adversity.
This is also why your competition can become less relevant in the long term — you can do things for the right reasons, make excellence a habit, and determine what it is that makes the work worth it.
If you’re doing it for the wrong (or even undiscovered) reasons, I’m afraid that burnout might be on the horizon. Get to know yourself, ask the tough questions, and correct course as aggressively as possible when you find yourself off track.