Take pride in how far you have come, and have faith in how far you can go!
– Christian Larson
This quote here today is for a very dear friend of mine. She is very direct/honest, a meticulous planner, and she makes for a great project manager. She measures progress, foresee roadblocks (drawn from experience), and delivers a hundred and one percent, on time.
Recently, we were talking over after hearty meal, and I noticed that she was self-limiting herself inadvertently by planning too far ahead. The lesson here however, is one that many people can learn from, and I’m writing this here to remind myself of this as well. Just as I have previous written here, Vinod Khosla (famed Silicon Valley fellow) has said that he has seen so many brilliant teams limit themselves by self-imposed limitations (they couldn’t think big enough).
Not that she was narrow in thought, but sometimes I feel she plans too far ahead. Just like my dad. He plans too damn far ahead. And I know he reads this blog. Just to put things in perspective, this is a person who would literally “book” me to come over for Thanksgiving dinner a year in advance (ok, so I’m exaggerating–but I dont mind it at all actually, I was just trying to illustrate a point). Sometimes when you plan so far ahead, then you just never get anything done, period.
As an example, if I am going press the fast-forward button on my life’s story until the end, where I actually die, then knowing that I will eventually die, then why bother waking up tomorrow morning? I should just make enough money to cover the costs of my funeral, and just fast-forward to that. There. Complete. Job well done. But that’s not the point, is it?
Ok, so that example was extreme, but if you worry about too many little things and don’t even get started, then you would have died of a thousand yet-to-be-inflicted cuts. That just sounds like a pathetic way for a project to die. The project died from imaginary cuts that it never had the chance of even getting close enough to endure?
I am by no means advocating NO planning. I’m just suggesting that one should plan to reduce risk to a certain degree, within reason, and then believing in one’s self that s/he will cross that bridge when s/he get there. By the law of attraction, a door will be opened to you — but you have to get to the door first in order to open it. Just play your cards right.
Like Vinod says: You don’t solve all problems before you jump into a new situation. You just believe in yourself, and say, “I’ll figure it out, one way or anotherâ€
Also to remember is Jim Collin’s Stockdale Paradox (part 1), which says: Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties. I’ve mentioned the Stockdale Paradox before here.
She will remain anonymous on this blog — you know who you are!