7 Assumptions That Have Gotten You This Far…But Are Now Holding You Back (part 4)
We’re crossing the halfway point of this series!
We’ve already talked about 3 assumptions that have gotten you this far but are now holding you back.
Old Assumption 1: There’s a clear path that I’m supposed to follow.
Old Assumption 2: First, I define a goal. Then I make a plan. Then I execute the plan.
Old Assumption 3: I avoid making mistakes.
Here’s number four.
Old Assumption 4: I know I’m succeeding if I’m doing everything really well.
Why this assumption has served you so far…
Throughout your school years and likely the first few years of your career, you had a limited set of things to do and your goal was to do them all well.
You took six classes. You got a report card. Your goal was all As on the report card.
You had a few things you were responsible for at work. You had a performance matrix. Your goal was to get high scores across the board.
And in this situation, with limited tasks and a visible report card, it makes a ton of sense to define “success” as “all As on my report card.”
And the path to getting all As was pretty simple – you just had to do everything really well.
…and why it’s holding you back now
But this is not the world you live in anymore. (It was never really the world you lived in to begin with, but it’s probably just more obvious now.)
Gone are the days of six classes or a few concrete things at work (and not much else going on in your life beyond that).
Now it’s work, and family, and health, and chores (and probably more). And each area seems to have its own list that’s a mile long and totally disorganized.
Now you have multiple, meaningful, competing priorities and there’s no more visible report card. There’s only the life you create for yourself.
And blindly carrying your “do everything well all the time” habit into this new world will lead you astray.
First, because the first couple things that come up in your day will end up getting the best parts of you, and by the time that’s done, you’re so tired that everything else just gets your dregs.
And second because there’s often SO MUCH stuff to do that, if you try to do it all well on an empty tank, you’ll walk straight into burnout.
You are no longer a student who needs to prove their worth with every task and every test.
If you are reading this sentence right now, then let me tell you without a shadow of a doubt:
You have crossed the threshold. You have proven yourself. You are done.
🌟 As of this moment, I now declare you More Than Good Enough. 🌟
And you need to STOP treating every task as an all-or-nothing test of your worthiness as a person.
And START deciding how you’re going to allocate the incredibly high quality, worthy person you already are to the different things you want to do.
You no longer need to drain every last bit of your energy to do everything really, really well.
Instead, I want you to imagine that you start every day with 100 units of Your Magic Touch that you give away to different things throughout the day.
And I want you to be incredibly cheap and stingy with your 100 units. Because ONE or even HALF a unit of Your Magic Touch is worth a LOT. And every unit you spend in one place is a unit you CAN’T spend anywhere else.
Stop doing everything really well and start doing the Bare Minimum Just Enough.
Stop asking what A+ looks like and start asking, “What’s the MINIMUM I need to do to get this out the door?”
And if you want to invest more of Your Magic Touch, go for it.
But start with the minimum as your reference point and build UP from there.
STOP starting with A+ as your reference point and then feeling like crap for every point you drop.
Because all that A+ work is an absolute waste of time if you’re doing 10x more than necessary at the cost of 10 other things you wish you could get done.
If the old assumption was I know I’m succeeding if I’m doing everything really well, then here’s the new one:
New Assumption 4: I know I’m succeeding if I’m actively doing the MINIMUM I need to get things out the door.
Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
📸 Instagram | 💌 Newsletter | 👋🏽 New? Start here