Embrace the Unfun

Even the unfun stuff is eventually good.

This was a message from a colleague who is in a stage of the process with a customer that isn't overly enjoyable and can get a little uncomfortable at times. Yet, he knows that in order to get to where he wants to be, this is just the way it is - you can't have the destination, unless taking the journey. However I replied:

As long as it is leading in the right direction, and not pointless.

I feel that often we do tasks and activities that we don't enjoy, but they are also not leading us to where we want to be. I also think that we do things that we do enjoy, that aren't leading us to where we want to be either. Sure, not everything has to be value adding, but if what we are doing is getting in the way of the direction we want to go, we are shooting ourselves in the foot and making our path unnecessarily more difficult.

Why?

The development of something like a career requires a cluster of skills and each one has to be up to at least a passing grade, with specialization requiring much higher. This means that if dealing with people for example, a highly skilled engineer still needs to be able to communicate effectively with an audience. They might not be great at it, they might not like doing it, but it is a necessary evil to enable them to do the other aspects of the job that they are good at and perhaps even passionate about. A sportsperson is the same, where they have to train doing things they don't like, so they can do the things they love.

I wonder if we were to visualize where we wanted to be in five years from now and then created a list of activities that are either a help or hinderance in achieving our goal. Objectively, what would that look like? What would it look like if each year we were able to improve 10% from the hinderance list? Would it compound the benefits of the help side?

I think so.

Small improvements can amount to large scale changes if they are consistently applied and continuously developed. It doesn't really matter whether the goal is to improve a physical skill or financial well being, systematically developing the right activities will increase the chance of success quite dramatically, as it snowballs the longer it is applied.

I was thinking about this in terms of developing here on Hive too, as over the years there has been plenty of people who have said that one of their regrets is not doing more early on. Yet, they have been saying this for a long time, but haven't changed their behavior still. Is it that they just don't want it enough?

I don't believe that.

Well, not entirely. I think that the "don't want it enough" comes more down to being unwilling to work out what actually needs to be done, and then systematically starting to do it. Consistency isn't hard, starting to become consistent is. It takes a fair bit of thought, but mostly trial and error and a willingness to fail or, not see much gain at all. But, what is easy to do is;

Pointless activity.

Sure, it doesn't feel pointless whilst doing it, but if we juxtapose it against that list of help or hinderance, if it is not helping, it is a hinderance, as it is still going to take our resources, whether that be time, energy or money. Just like the saying of, " you have to spend money to make money", we have to spend something to generate our desired outcomes. There will always be outcomes regardless, but they aren't going to be close to the ones we want, when much of what we do is contrary to what we need to do to get there.

I am in a lucky position where I get to hear a lot of people speak about their hopes and dreams, but what most fail to do is actually work out what is required to get there. This means that they "can't fail" because they never need actually start the journey. Instead, they can console themselves with the fantasies (or regrets) of "too late" and "one day". There is only ever one day.

Today.

Tomorrow will be Today soon enough, and the day after will follow. But at a practical level, what would have changed in our behavior? Anything? Probably. We are always changing, always in flux, always moving. But, when we do it without intention, we are at the mercy of the world, passengers.

What do you intend to do?

Many will say "something".
Most will do nothing.

Even the unfun can help us.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]