Imperfect

My friend Matty has had a few shoulder injuries. He recently had surgery and is now post-rehab but getting back to day-to-day life, and he is struggling.

What he could do, movement-wise, strength-wise is all different. He works with his hands so having shoulder strength and mobility is very important, basically critical to his success as a tradesman.

He called me to talk about my ankle. I wanted to be a professional athlete until I got injured. I broke my ankle and now I have barely any range of motion. Running is definitely off the table but I can limp really fast when I need to. The good days are when walking doesn’t hurt, some days every step is painful.

Success?

Matty asked what I do for my ankle and how I deal with life now that what I could do and what I can do are so far apart.

I answered – It’s hard.

For me, the biggest thing is looking at every day as a chance to improve. What I could do has gone. What I can do is under my control.

Here is a thought experiment.

What does success mean to you?

Is it money? Is it freedom? Is it time? Is it family? Is it friends? Is it an ankle that works?

Perfectly Imperfect

We will never be perfect.

It might be a hard pill to swallow. I struggle with this. I struggled with this while writing this sentence. I have already changed it twice. Using different words, fixing spelling mistakes, rearranging the order.

The challenge isn’t to be perfect. It is a fools’ errand.

The challenge is continually trying to get better, whatever better means to you.

Making Better Work For Me

Goals and outcomes are great but they are meaningless without a strategy and process to get there.

I want to make a million dollars is a fine goal, now what? The goal gives you a direction but not how you are going to get there.

Figure out what success looks like and then create systems, structures, and processes to move towards that success.

For my ankle, I want to keep it as healthy as possible. How I have figured out to do that is that I need to work out and put some force through the joint so I lift weights 3 times a week. The nice little side effect of this is a million and one health benefits I get from working out. To get to the gym I pack my bags that night and have all my workout clothes on the floor so that when my alarm goes off I have already made the decision to go.

Consistency beats intensity.

For my career, I want to get an exec or CEO role. I want to help people have a more fulfilled and enjoyable work life, so to help me get there I am trying to demonstrate my strategy and leadership knowledge by writing here. I write an article every Thursday. So far I have done 49 posts, this is number 50. It is crazy how things add up over time.

Making Better Work For You

Figure out what is important, and what success looks like, and then work backwards from there.

This process is imperfect. You might try a process and find out it doesn’t give you the outcome you were looking for or it was ineffective, that is great. Get creative and think of another way to approach it.

Maybe through the process, you figure out that what was once important is no longer as important. Also great. Figure out what you want and make a new process to achieve that.

We want to let go of the idea of perfection. Nothing is going to be perfect. Everything is always in a state of flux.

You get out of life what you put in it, the process is important.