Read This If You're Waiting For Something

Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash

In the "productivity" or "project management" world, things you're waiting on are called dependencies.

You're dependent on someone's work to get done so you can start your own.

In complex projects, you may have multiple dependencies--which means even if some of them are ready on time or ahead of schedule if ONE of them is late, your start time is late.

Based on this, you can easily guess that the fewer dependencies you have, the faster you can go because you're in more control of your start/finish times.

One of the reasons startups move so fast is because there are fewer departments, fewer regulations or requirements, and often, fewer stakeholders weighing in.

Faster doesn't always mean better, I'm just pointing out a real-world example, here.

The point is, that whatever you're doing, you may be waiting on dependencies that you have no control over and you might be waiting on dependencies that you can remove.

Distinguishing and scrutinizing dependencies are the skills we're developing, here.

2 Minute Action:

What are the things you're waiting on to finish or even start?

What would happen if you went ahead without them?

If you're a surgeon and you're waiting on the blood-type of your patient, you should probably hold off until you have it. The stakes are high.

For most other scenarios, the stakes aren't very high and you might find that you can get to your goal faster if you eliminate dependencies or if you work in parallel while they're in progress.

So, in 2 minutes, find a dependency you have and challenge it.

Make it fight for its life to stay a dependency.

Your work depends on it.

Understand These 3 Concepts And Move On From Anything

Sometimes you just take a beating.

It’s not always because of anything you can control—it’s just part of operating in a world with other sentient beings and physical forces.

Pretending it didn’t hurt or avoiding the process of understanding where the pain comes from just makes it worse later on.

What’s difficult is spending your whole life converting the operations around you into processes you can control, being successful at it, and then facing something painful and uncontrollable.

Learning to let things go and move on is just one of those things that takes a lifetime to which to adjust.

Sure there are some skills we can master while we’re here, but there’s really no end point.

The only "point of arrival" is the end of life, really.

• You can get in shape, but you can’t ever finish eating healthily.
• You can work nights to pay for college, but you can’t ever spend enough on your kid’s education.
• You can become a race car driver, but you can still get rear-ended at a stop sign.

The goal then, shouldn’t just be to take control of everything, but to understand what we can and can’t achieve—and then spend our resources moving toward those achievable goals.

In the meantime, while we’re moving, it’s good to remember that we sometimes take a beating regardless of how reasonable the goal is.

In fact, we might get beat up just sitting at home where we thought it was safe.

So, it’s not useful to drop out when it hurts. Pain just doesn’t have a good enough correlation with circumstance to be the only factor in our decision.

It also helps, while we’re moving, to remember that adjusting to pain isn’t like flipping a light switch. It takes time and the amount of time it takes varies based on circumstance, personal experience, and predisposition.

Some lessons to take away from this:

1. Pain feels like an indication that we should change direction or hide but that’s not always the case.
2. Staying at home or avoiding risk can still lead to pain, so you might as well work hard to achieve what you want.
3. Being at peace with an imperfect world doesn’t mean you are eternally and outwardly happy, it just means you accept the often unfair pains of life.

2 Minute Action

Reach out to someone who is in pain and let them know you’re on their team.

Take a risk (it can be a small one) that you have been considering or avoiding.

Execute a small and possibly random act of kindness.

I promise you don’t need more than 2 minutes to do any of these.

That part is all in your head.

Today is up to you and you can completely transform your outlook and chances of success in 2 minutes or less.

The Process For Getting The Impossible Change We All Seek

It’s the hardest thing anyone can do.It takes time, persistence, courage, and keeping calm.The strange thing is that more and more people do it everyday.

Have you ever climbed Mt. Everest?

The first few times, there were no ropes, no sherpas, no handbooks, no technical boots, no wind proof synthetic down jackets.

But then it got easier.

All of a sudden there were ladders, base camps, and guidebooks.All of a sudden, it didn’t require the same risk or investment.If you ask the folks who ascend massive peaks or climb giant granite wall faces or who run hundreds of miles in an ultra-marathon—they’ll tell you that they are now different people because of it.

It’s the impossible challenge that forges new character.

Yvonne Chouinard, founder and CEO of Patagonia, the outdoor equipment company known for its activism, once said:

“Taking a trip for six months, you get in the rhythm of it. It feels like you can go on forever doing that. Climbing Everest is the ultimate and the opposite of that. Because you get these high-powered plastic surgeons and CEOs, and you know, they pay $80,000 and have Sherpas put the ladders in place and 8,000 feet of fixed ropes and you get to the camp and you don’t even have to lay out your sleeping bag. It’s already laid out with a chocolate mint on the top. The whole purpose of planning something like Everest is to effect some sort of spiritual and physical gain and if you compromise the process, you’re an asshole when you start out and you’re an asshole when you get back.”– 180° South

The point here is about process.What kind of transformation are you seeking and are you compromising on the process?

2 Minute Action:

Are you going through the motions?Pick a role model, expert in your field, or mentor.What would Elon Musk do?How might a navy seal do it?What might your high-school track coach say about your method?It’s your call to do the work but it’s also your call on how to define what the work is.Take 2 minutes to question your process and poke some holes in it.