The best way to make a rope strong is to make it by weaving many strands together. The best way to create a strong, satisfying pattern for your life and career is to weave together the six different strands that make up a complete career pattern.
Success isn’t a matter of completing each strand come what may. It’s the balance between the strands that really counts, constantly shifting between them over time. Which is more important today? Which should come first and get most focus now?
Without an overall direction and a clear set of values, you’ll be reduced to making continual, ad hoc decisions. There will never be a clear pattern, leading to a desired life and career goal; everything will be decided on the spur of the moment. You can call it flexibility, spontaneity, or whatever you want, but the truth is that, if you haven’t decided on a long-term direction, just about any direction will do. And if that direction changes constantly, pushed this way and that by random events, why should it matter?
Every few years, some variant on the power of positive thinking hits the bookshelves: some fresh take on the mystical notion that intention alone can change your life. It’s snapped up by dreamers hungry for an escape from the boring realities of continual effort and setbacks. Does it work? Only to the extent that it provides some initial enthusiasm and stimulus. After a while, reality steps back in and the fuss dies down . . . ready to make a millionaire of another guru with the same idea in fix years or so.
That’s often the fate of people who buy piles of self-help books and programs. They listen and read—and listen and read some more—attend seminars and talk excitedly about the latest ideas for getting your life together. But it never gets beyond talk and reading. It’s more fun to consider possibilities than risk disappointment by trying any of them in an organized way.
Doing what everyone else does—or expects—easily becomes a way of avoiding responsibility. There are many risks in creating your own way through life. Not the least is that you have to give up blaming others for any setbacks or failures. No whining. No trying to slide out of being accountable for your choices. You need to stand up and accept that it’s your life and you have to be the one who makes it go where you want. No more excuses.
Just as the strongest rope is woven from the greatest number of strands, so the strongest and most effective choices for your life and career include all the strands given here. Any that you miss out will weaken your decisions and lower your possibility of success. Don’t be a dreamer, stuck with only Strands 1 and 2. Don’t be a lemming, rushing after everyone else. Don’t be a groupie, constantly looking for the next bandwagon to jump on. Work steadily, weaving all the strands together, and whatever you create will have real strength and staying power.
Related posts:
- Coachology: Creating a path through your twenties
- What’s stopping you?
- Newly thinking about motivation
- Slow Planning
- Take the pressure off the process of choosing a career
- Leisure Is the meaning of work
- Workplace karma
- Fads, fashions, and work/life balance
Adrian Savage is a writer, an Englishman, and a retired business executive, in that order. He lives in Tucson, Arizona. You can read his other articles at Slow Leadership, the site for everyone who wants to build a civilized place to work and bring back the taste, zest and satisfaction to leadership and life. His latest book, Slow Leadership: Civilizing The Organization, is now available at all good bookstores.
