Past few days have been slow, gloomy, with lack of focus towards work or joy for no particular reason. All i did was keep myself occupied with any random video/TV series movie, anything i could get my hands on to. To tell you, some day during this time i went off on a Romantic Thriller spree and binged watched 4 typical cheesy Hindi movies back to back.
“You seem a little distracted lately, is everything okay? let me know and we can find something else and de-risk the high priority project” This is what i heard today from my manager in our Adhoc 1:1. While i appreciated the fact that he was looking out for me. I heard these words like the only opportunity i had to prove myself is about to be taken away.
I, in my mind, teleported to “The Matrix” movie scene, sitting in front of Morpheus and getting asked the one question that changes the life of Neo, makes him the One.
Morpheus:This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
Being self aware(which is a journey in itself) is the key to pick the correct answer in such cases, detaching yourself from the problem itself, identify what is the success metric that will define the answer. To make my decision of should i delve into the Rabbit hole of should i stay in the Happy world where i was. I asked sought answers to questions within me:
- Why am i doing this project? What benefit will this give me?
- Will i learn something new? A new skill, or a new insight about the customers, or perhaps a new insight about the business?
- What benefit will it bring to my company or the world?
- Will the world be a better place because of this project, while my company be better if i solve this problem for them?
My Success Metrics for this problem:
- It should improve me in some form AND
- It should improve my company/world in some form.
With the pressure that comes along with high impact, high focus, highly urgent projects. If any of the answers to the questions would not be satisfactory, i would have gladly said “Yes, i want to pick up something else”. But, the answers i found, helped me pick the decision i wanted to take. I took the red pill. Human mind always seeks what is familiar and always resists work in any shape or form, but if you are able to analytically/logically find the answers, you break the barriers of your mind and think clearly.
Soon, I went into a disaster control and overworked to get back up to speed on the high impact highly urgent, highly important project. I still got a thrashing for not being focused, but i was finally out of the terrible mindset i was imprisoned in. No one gets a lot of opportunities in life, let alone being able to successfully convert them.
Remember:
In Life, What got you here, will not take you there
You will have to work extra hard, focus extra hard and sacrifice even more to reach the next step. Your achievements/knowledge will speak for all the hard work and sacrifice. In a country like India where for every opportunity has 1000s of rightful seekers. It becomes extremely important to seize every opportunity to the best of your ability. One advice that i have internalised is
“Given any opportunity, say YES first and figure out how to do it. As there are only 2 ways it could play out
- you will persevere and build something amazing
- you will fail and learn something amazing.
The Obvious thing/easy path is generally not the best decision, that is the average decision that 99% of the people will take.
Which person do you want to become, 99% or 1%?
~P
