Last week I spoke about the importance of starting the right thing.
What we start dictates what we do.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking we want something because society says it’s cool to do or we feel we are capable of it.
Only later do we realise, it isn’t what we wanted.
Some sure-fire strategies for an unhappy life:
Toiling away at something we aren’t passionate about
Trying to please an idea of someone or something that doesn’t exist.
Financial security at the cost of our relationships and health
We need to understand ourselves and our motivations and what makes us tick to work on something that aligns with our true selves.
This sounds like we are getting into the territory of finding our true life purpose. It suggests that doing something that isn’t perfect would be a sin.
Yet, of course, the opposite is true.
Nothing will be perfect when we start it.
What’s even more shocking is that nothing will be perfect whilst we do it or when it is finished.
In fact, finishing our greatest works can be remarkably underwhelming.
We should expect it to be.
For then we would start things that are fun whilst doing and not for just the outcome.
Does it matter what I do?
In a word - no.
In more words - It’s complicated.
What’s important is to start something and learn from experience.
You can’t know yourself without experiencing yourself in different situations so try lots of things.
Have many different side hustles all at once. Have none at all.
Spend months in different parts of the world and with different levels of responsibility.
Live in a big city and live off the land.
Work online and work with your hands.
Invest in learning about yourself and the world all at once.
When life gives you two options, choose the one that is the story you wish to tell for the rest of your life.
Not only do you get to tell it but you get to live it.
Does it matter what you do first?
Sort of.
I would recommend doing things appropriate for your age.
Working a ski season is a cheap way to spend time in the mountains skiing, drinking with friends, and meeting lots of people.
It’s more enjoyable when you’re young because hangovers don’t matter and you don’t have knee problems.
Staying in the same place and working hard for years in a row is more sensible when you are older and have other responsibilities like a family and pets and mortgages.
Escaping vs Going faster vs keeping up
We easily slip into the fallacy that once we’ve done a just bit more work and squeezed a bit more money into our bank account then everything will be easier.
People don’t realise that the opposite is true.
Everything gets harder to do the older you get. You have more responsibilities, more back problems, less energy, and more stigma.
You establish more social ties around the work you do along with more ingrained habits and mental pathways that are harder to break out of.
You become hooked on the wage you have and depend on it being bigger next year.
As Red Queen told Alice: “here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place.”
If you do achieve financial goals then just having money is a set of tasks in itself.
As we age we also lose the emotional feelings we attach to certain things.
What excites you now might not be so exciting next year.
So enjoy things to the full whilst you can enjoy them.
How do you know what to do?
The losing strategy is to wait for a sense of ‘security’ to appear or for divine intervention to show us the right path.
We must learn to make up our path and stride out confident in the knowledge we’ll work it out along the way.
Rushing achieves little, whilst waiting achieves nothing.
Write out some logical ideas and start one of them.
Do not fear taking the wrong path or the sub-optimal path. Fear not taking a path.
See what happens and don’t fear stopping things early or incomplete. If better opportunities arise jump on them.
Why read a bad book when you can read one you love?
Why spend a year finishing a project you don’t care about when you can start something you’ve always wanted to do?
When to quit is always a balance that is tricky to find.
Do not mistake difficulty as a sign of a mistake.
A life avoiding difficulty will lead you nowhere.
If you start exercising you should expect to get exhausted. It’s a sign you’re doing something right.
If you run a business and it is never difficult, then anyone else could start it.
There is a threshold of difficulty you should expect to come with anything worth doing.
“To expect Bruce Lee like results, one must put in Bruce Lee levels of effort”
Make the first move
The worst part of anything is the blank canvas.
Make the first brushstroke. Write the first line. Put down some ideas and then work with them.
An essential trait to success is the willingness to make the first move and see what happens.
You can’t ruin a piece of work without starting it yet the only way to uncover good ideas is to get them out there and give them a chance.
Ideas are stepping stones
We often think we have already had all the best ideas we will have and want to only do create them in their perfect form. Instead getting our ideas out there and making them happen unblocks our path.
We should treat our ideas like stepping stones that allow us to walk the path to bigger and better ideas.
If an idea leads down a dead-end you learned and can try new ideas with experience. Often we just need to get a lot of bad results to get a win.
To raise money for a business 90% of people will say no to you. You can’t expect every lead to work. Just that every lead could work.
Start your projects or ideas with passion and fear not the failure. It’s just part of the path to success.
Detach yourself from the expectation of making the best or right next move. It's impossible to ever know for certain.
Simply choose a domino, give it a push, and see what happens.
Jeremy Enns