The Truth Curve

I was about to start writing a review of a book that I just read and immediately felt resistance.  But not the kind of resistance that Pressfield calls Resistance with a capital ‘R.’  That’s the good kind of resistance.  No, this was the bad kind of resistance, that dreadful, insidious, suffocating kind of resistance: resistance with a small ‘r.’ 

Let me explain the difference.

The good kind of Resistance is born of fear.  Fear that you’re not good enough, fear that you can’t do it, fear that you’ll fail.  Whatever it is you’re pursuing, you want to pursue it yet are blocked by fear that manifests itself as Resistance.  This Resistance tries to divert you from your higher self.  You can beat this kind of Resistance by noticing it and summoning your courage to beat it.

The bad kind of resistance is born of “should.”  When I sat down to write, I realized that I felt that I should review this book*.  But I didn’t really want to because it didn’t move me and therefore, I wasn’t terribly motivated to review it.   I don’t know why I felt that I should do it but I did.  And then it hit me: this is the other kind of resistance, the resistance that’s not covered in The War of Art.  This is the resistance to the “shoulds” of life.

There are so many things in life we as adults feel that we should do.  We should go to work every day and we should keep a clean and tidy house and we should save for retirement and we should be respectable and say “please” and “thank you.”  Well.  With so many things that society already prescribes for us, why add more unnecessary “shoulds?”  Do you realize that these “shoulds” are sucking the vitality right out of you?  You already spend a large portion of your day on the “shoulds” that you can’t get away from, why would you pile on more “shoulds” that you’ve created yourself?

Take a look, a close look.  Right this moment, are you experiencing resistance to anything?  (Of course you are, else you wouldn’t be procrastinating by reading this post.)  Does it resemble Resistance (a.k.a. Fear) or resistance?  Are there “shoulds” that you’ve convinced yourself are external?  That is, have you convinced yourself that all these things that you should do don’t come from you but from others around you - your boss, your spouse, society?  Who says that your house has to be clean and tidy?  Who says that you have to call the annoying person back?  Who says that you have to eat a healthy, well-balanced meal?  And who says that I should write a blog post about a book that I read?  Recognize that nobody is forcing you to do these things.  You created these “shoulds” and they are running your life.

Why is this a problem?

Because you’re wasting time on things that won’t make one iota of difference in your life.  This is precious time you could be using to do something you enjoy.  Because when you do things you enjoy instead of slogging through the day dutifully doing what you think everyone else wants you to do, you’ll feel more fulfilled.  When you’re old, you’re not going to look back on your life and say, “Gee, I wish I’d kept a neater house.”  You’ll look back with regret on the things you didn’t do. 

Instead of dutifully following all these self-created “shoulds,” recognize them for what they are and let them go.  Free yourself of the handful of “shoulds” that won’t make a difference in your life but will just rob you of time you could be using to do something with passion.  Most of your life is already taken up with all the things you have no choice but to do.  Don’t fill up the rest of your precious time with unnecessary “shoulds.”

 

* If you really want to know, the book I didn’t feel like writing about is Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely.

Tags: Growth, Habits, Procrastination, Success, Time by Julie
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“Talent is cheaper than table salt.  What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”

- Stephen King

In a previous article, I made the argument that it is deliberate practice - that daily slog through the unpleasant and the difficult - that gets you to success.  If success is overwhelmingly comprised of hard work, like Stephen King suggests, then does talent matter? 

I would say, yes.  Here’s why:

Let’s assume that talent comprises a small part of success and that it really is hard work that accounts for most of one’s success.  Then why bother with talent at all?  It’s so limiting, after all.  Why not be and do whatever you want to be and do regardless of the talents that you were born with?  A lot of us (especially in my generation) grew up with the notion that you can do “whatever you set your mind to.”

Even if talent accounts for a small percentage of success, it’s visible to us.  We’re able to pick out the Picasso from the Shmicasso.  Now, Shmicasso may be creating paintings exactly like Picasso (or so it seems) but there will always be something about Picasso that makes his work brilliant and that of Shmicasso just average. I don’t know how we know but we do know and we see the difference.  Perhaps when Picasso chooses to put a yellow line here, it’s brilliant. Shmicasso instead puts the yellow line over there.  We can’t put our finger on it but there is something about that yellow line that gives the Picasso painting a sense of “just-rightness” but makes the Shmicasso painting seem just average.  Shmicasso’s work may look competent and solid but it doesn’t wow us, and all because he misplaced the yellow line on the canvas.

I don’t know what talent is exactly; it has always struck me as a mysterious gift.  But I believe it is about having the right judgment.  Talent is the ability to generalize from one situation to another without the benefit of previous experience.  It is the ability to use intuition about what is good and what is not good.  It is about making the right aesthetic or strategic choice nearly all the time.  The person who has no talent in a certain domain can be taught the rules or steps to follow and he will follow them, do well and turn in a solid performance.  But as soon as there is a twist or an unexpected situation, the talentless person is lost; he does not know what to do because it’s not in the steps or rules he learned.  He can’t improvise.  The talented person, on the other hand, knows what to do even though he has never faced that exact situation before.

So what?  If you do not have the talent but work hard enough and succeed, then isn’t that enough?

Is it?  Is it enough to be average in something?  Are you okay with being average?  Godin argues that you should be the best; that average is not a good use of your limited time.  Not only is this not a good use of your time but you would also be depriving the world of your unique contribution.

However, if you just have talent but don’t work to develop it, then you won’t even get out of the starting gate.  People with far less talent will beat you and enjoy success.  Their work won’t be particularly brilliant but at least it will be done.  Having talent and not using it is like sitting on a diamond mine and never doing anything with it.  By itself, the diamond is worthless: it’s a lumpy rock that has little value.  It only has potential.  The value is in the cutting of it.  How you cut it and set it brings out its brilliance.

True success and satisfaction will come not from your ability to work hard but from your ability to identify your unique talents and then work hard to bring them out.  Now that is a powerful combination.

Tags: Productivity, Success, Talent, Work by Julie
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