Planning & Action

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Bend it like Beckham. But how? Part 2

March 2, 2007 in Getting Things Done, Motivation, Personal Development, Planning & Action | 6 comments

In my earlier post (part 1), I said that two individuals practicing for same number of hours might not progress at the same speed. This means that they might not get the same results from their endeavors. Why is that? Is one person having more natural talent than the other? Not likely. The difference is in one’s ability to choose where to focus. Choosing where to focus, what to practice on is not easy as it sounds. You might say, “Just focus on the barriers and you’ll be Barrierfine.” I am sorry to break this illusion but it doesn’t work this way. If your focus is on the wrong barrier, you won’t accomplish your goal, and your under performance will lead to frustration.

So the key is to identify different kinds of barriers. Based on my experiences and readings, I consider mainly two kinds of barriers.

1. Primary barriers

First type of barriers are those which hamper your progress. These barriers interfere with your strengths and that’s why you are not able to reach your full potential. These are the primary barriers.

2. Secondary barriers

Second type of barriers are those which do not block your progress. These barriers do not prevent you from exercising your strengths to full extent. These are the secondary barriers.

CricketFor example, in cricket fastest bowlers are not the best bowlers. So, lack of speed in my bowling is not the real cause of my average performance. Speed is the secondary barrier. My primary barrier is the lack of good length and tight line. So, instead of practicing for fastest delivery, I should be practicing for good line and length.

What to do?

The trick is to distinguish between these types of barriers and work only on the primary barriers. Working on secondary barriers is a waste of time unless you have already overcome your primary barriers and overcoming the secondary barriers will help you perform better. Overcoming primary barriers will allow you to play to your strengths with full potential. Do understand that this will improve your effectiveness but not necessarily your efficiency. In essence, to become a great performer what you have to answer is – how to be more effective (in practice sessions).

To be able to distinguish between these two types of barriers requires clear understanding of what you want to achieve. If your goals are not clear to you, you will never be able to identify and focus on your primary barriers. Another important thing to remember is to keep your mind open to suggestions. Sometimes, when you can’t see the primary barriers, external sources, like your teachers, parents, siblings, or friends, might help.

For example

When I was in 7th standard, we were learning how to balance chemical equations in our chemistry class. Every one was practicing hard on it because that was the only topic that was supposed to be in our midterms. Like everyone, I was alsoBalancing chemical equation practicing a lot to solve the equations using mathematical concepts. But maths alone was not enough to make it work. I was not getting the right answers, no matter how much I practiced.

Thanks to my mother, she saw me in frustration and came to help.

The first thing she made me to do was to memorize the periodic table and learn the atomicity of all the elements in the table. Knowing whether the element is diatomic, triatomic, etc. helped me deciding what multiplication factors can be used to balance the equations. Then we set up some rules, e.g., tackle the complex molecules first and the independent elements last.

So, this time I practiced with the knowledge of atomicity of the elements keeping the rules in my mind. The result – I was the only student in my batch to get all the answers correct in the midterms. That definitely made me popular in the school but the important thing was the lesson I learned. Jump over the barrier

Finale

Lesson learned was: know what is obstructing your progress and work only on it.

What really matters is your ability to recognize what really matters. You cannot run blindly for one thing today and for another tomorrow. Identify the limiting factors, differentiate them into primary and secondary barriers, and focus completely on the primary barriers.

Practice with a plan and the knowledge of the primary barriers. Some people are able to do it subconsciously, while others, including me, need to be explicit about it.

Read also: Bend it like Beckham. But how? Part 1

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What would I do with 10 million dollars?

January 27, 2007 in Getting Things Done, Meaning, Planning & Action | No comments

Last week I was having a discussion with a very close friend about our past, present and future. When I asked him what he wants to do in life, his reply was, “Earn millions of dollars”. I believed that he had something specific in his mind so I asked him, “For what?”. And he had no answers. He didn’t even say ‘to live lavishly’ because he is not that kind of guy. He does not know what he want to do with that money. But then why he wants to earn so much? I couldn’t really understand. That set me thinking that earning money cannot be a goal.

Money serves a purpose, it is a means to a goal. What if somehow 10 million dollars appeared in my account? It doesn’t matter how – I inherited it, someone just gave it to me, I earned it, or I won a lottery. But what matters is that what would I do with it? I thought a lot about it but it seemed like my mind had gone just blank. There are many things a person can do – buy house, cars, travel, and blah blah. I couldn’t comeup with a to-do list that would make some sense to me. Finally, I narrowed down to the following options to discuss with you:

Use it for upliftment of poor children – Every once in a while I browse through the websites of the non-profit organizations working towards betterment of poor children and providing them education. Although many non-profit organizations (not all) are working hard towards upliftment of poor children, their efforts alone are not enough. They need more hands to share the load, more minds with right attitude, and more financial sources for the cause. As Annie puts it (35 million, 12 paise),

That’s right. Thirty-five million. These millions are, what the government of India collectively calls, ‘children in need of protection‘. Defined by the ministry of social justice and empowerment as children in ‘extremely difficult circumstances’, they include children in conflict with the law, victims of crime or natural disasters, orphaned, abandoned or runaway children, rescued child labourers, trafficked children, amongst others.

I do donate in small amounts whenever I can but I am not able to contribute significantly since even a small amount is infact a large percentage of my student stipend. However, what I really want to do is to sponsor complete education of atleast one child if possible. But that’s not possible yet on my student stipend.

If I had 10 million dollars, I could sponsor education for many more children. For that I need to find the right people and the question that arises is which organization I can donate to? Which one to trust with such a huge amount of money? How would I know that the money is being used for the right purpose and reaching the deserving ones? Or instead of just donating the money, can I use it for the same purpose in some other way? I have never thought about it. This means I am not ready to have so much money yet for this purpose. I am not prepared for it. Forget 10 million dollars, I have no idea how I am going to help towards the betterment of poor children once I graduate and start earning.

Start a company – Couple of times I had discussions with friends about starting my own company. I want my ‘company’ to have a good purpose, something useful to society, and not just profit-making. Paul Graham suggests to have right people, right products and right spending plan to start a company. With 10 million dollars in my pocket, I won’t have to worry for the funds (atleast for a while). But the problem is that I don’t know what I will produce and which customers I will target. I don’t know yet. I am not ready to have so much money for this purpose. I am an introvert person so networking, for me, is a nightmare. Rob listed excellent suggestions on how to network for introvert people like me. But I have not started working on it. It requires lot of efforts on my part. But If I won’t then how am I suppose to find right people when I’ll need them. Seems like I am just not prepared yet. When will I start preparing for it?

Make investments – Among other options, this seems to be a wise call. But I don’t know the ABC of how and where to invest. I read Ramit’s blog regularly but have never given enough time to research on his suggestions on how to start investing wisely and act on them. What stops me is the thinking barrier that I don’t earn ‘enough’ money right now. But that’s not the problem. I can start taking small steps like open a savings account (ING, HSBC, EMIGRANT). But I am too lazy to do it. The problem is my attitude and overthinking. I need to change my thinking to prepare myself to handle such a huge sum of money.

Spend it lavishly – Well, I won’t be able to do it without feeling guilty so this option doesn’t count for me. Been a student for so long, that I have learned to live within my means.

In summary, I have not prepared myself to do any of the above even to my capacity as of now. I can tell you that it is not the lack of money that is stopping me but my laziness and overthinking. People who are serious about doing something, just do it. Money matters don’t stop them. What’s needed is the DOer attitude, which makes every difficult-to-do and/or seem-to-be-impossible thing possible, be it starting Room to Read by John Wood or SUBWAY by Fred and Peter.

What would you do if you had 10 million dollars? What are you doing right now? Do you really think that lack of money is stopping you?

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To err is human

September 15, 2006 in Getting Things Done, Planning & Action | 1 comment

mistake

We all do make mistakes and we do regret making them. Based on my short-lived experience (life is short), I would say that the mistakes that I make can be broadly classified into two types – mistakes due to carelessness and mistakes due to wrong decisions. There are simple and very severe consequences of both types of mistakes. But it is not the consequences that make our life miserable, but our response to those consequences.

According to the common cultural assumptions, mistakes are sign of failure and we should try to completely avoid them. Since childhood you are condemned for your mistakes and are pressured to avoid them in future by not ‘repeating them again’. This mentality hampers your decision making ability. You think more about not making a mistake than trying to come up with a solution to the problem at hand. Even I am victim of this thinking. Many times I think more about what if this fails or that fails rather than try to really solve the problem.

In my previous post analysis paralysis and just do it attitude, I mentioned how I am learning to avoid this overthinking, this fear of making mistakes. But decisions do go wrong and I do have to face the consequences. There is no escape. But what differentiates my mistakes from being failures is my attitude towards them. It benefits me a lot to accept the mistake, find what went wrong, and then move on. There is no point in lamenting on it and making your own life miserable. Imagine that you go for a dance show and one of the dancers loses her balance and falls on her butt. If she panicks, feel embarrassed and leaves the stage, you would definitely call her a failure. But if she gets up and starts from where she left, you would appreciate for her courage and attitude. It is the same attitude you need to bring in your daily life.

A failure is a man who has blundered but is not capable of cashing in on the experience. – Elbert Hubbard

Consequences are not in your hands. You cannot control them. What you can do is to take actions and choose your attitude towards the consequences, good or bad. As Viktor Fankl said that the greatest of human freedoms is to be able to choose one’s own attitude. Your attitude determines your response to an event. And your response makes you feel good or bad about your situation.

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Stop Overthinking, Just Do It

August 28, 2006 in Getting Things Done, Planning & Action | 11 comments

Sometimes you just fail to move forward. It happens to you right? You think about doing this and doing that, you do your research well about the topic, you make all the preparations but in the end you just fail to implement or launch what you have been thinking. The phrase that comes to my mind to define such problem is ‘Paralysis by Analysis‘.

It is characterized by lack of execution. It affects your decision making process from simple everyday decisions, like where to go for lunch, to important life/career changing decisions like should I switch jobs or should I do a Ph.D. You face lot of trouble making such decisions because you are conditioned by your thoughts. You are afraid to take action and face the consequences. You want to somehow look ahead in time and make sure that everything will be perfect as you want. You are afraid of failure. You want to avoid embarassment. You are just lost.

But you are not alone. There are many like you and I, who find it difficult to decide on one thing and then go for it. Stop overthinking.

Stop

Recently, another graduate student, Ady (name changed) joined our group to work with me on one of our projects. Earlier, I was the only person working on the project, so I had to do all the work of designing, implementation and testing. But now, I handle mostly the research aspects, prototype design issues and some basic coding for the application and Ady handles the development, implementation and testing part.

Since Ady joined us, our progress has taken a steep upward curve. The main factor for this increased producitivity can be attributed to Ady’s ‘Just Do It’ attitude. Generally, I do a lot of analysis and planning before actually doing any task. This saves me from going in tangent directions but sometimes this analysis/planning phase doesn’t seem to end. So, the task gets delayed more and more. Now, with Ady I am learning to put closure on analysis phase and start doing things. Everything doesn’t need to and cannot be perfect. At some point you need to stop thinking and take action.

However analysis is important too. Time spent on thinking, researching and planning is not wasted if it leads to action. Action without direction is harmful. So in our team we found a balance. I save Ady from going in tangent directions and he motivates me to take action. And that’s why our project is progressing pretty well.

There are mainly two things you have to cure about yourself to break this problem of analysis paralysis.

Avoid fear of failure:

Thomas Edison was successful because he knew the importance of failure. Had he given up after few failures, he would have not been able to find the right filament for the light bulb. According to him, failures tell you what won’t work. He used Ready-Fire-Aim approach rather than Ready-Aim-Fire approach. All you have to do is make an attempt and instead of being afraid of failures, embrace them, learn from them, and your aim will get better as you go along.

You should not get bogged down by what people say about you. Limitations are not in your abilities but in your thinking. You become your thoughts. So, if you are afraid of failures then your thoughts are more about failures than success. This way you are giving more importance to failure and attracting it. Change your thinking right now. Think yourself as a successful person and accept failure as necessary steps towards success.

Just do it:

Finally I have learned the importance of what my advisor always says, ‘Bite the bullet and just do it’. You’ll always regret the time wasted in over-analysis. One of my friends is contemplating on what career path he should choose. He discussed with me in lengths if he should do MBA or not. That led me to write a post on ‘Getting ahead without MBA‘, which he found very helpful. But still he has not made any concrete decision. He doesn’t want to choose a wrong path and then regret the time wasted on it. But my argument is if he doesn’t make a decision soon, he is going to waste his time analyzing the options and regret anyway.

We have a habit of trying to make everything perfect. We are always looking for a perfect solution not knowing what perfect means for us. What we don’t realize is that solution is a noun. It won’t work by itself. The key term is solve which is a verb and requires action. You have to attempt, make efforts in some direction even if you fail a couple of times.

jump

It is a learning process. It is a shift of attitude. The only solution is to believe in yourself and ‘Just Do It’.

You might agree with what I say and do recognize the problem of analysis paralysis, but still many of you won’t take any action to do something about it. This attitude is quite common with blog readers and I must accept that I am also a victim of it. But instead of directly encouraging readers to apply ‘Just Do It’ approach, Darren listed 4 strategies for blog writers on ‘How to Move Readers to a Point of Desire‘ in his series on Persuasive Blogging. Now, instead of contemplating on whether the strategies would work or not, I’ll have to ‘Just Do It’ and test it myself.

If you want to be successful in life, start early. Make decisions sooner and take action without any fear of failure. Life is nothing but a series of experiences, the more you experience, the richer you become.

[Update]

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