It’s easy to confuse the time we spend thinking about getting better at something and time we spend doing the work of improving.
“I’m no good at fundraising.”
“I’m terrified of public speaking.”
“I don’t stand up to people when I disagree with them.”
These are our going-in narratives
Then we start thinking about how we’d like to be better at that thing, maybe we buy a book or take a course or join a gym in service of that goal.
We’ve done something. A thing. It’s more than nothing, just enough to tell ourselves we’ve started.
But improvement is slow. We get distracted. We do a little bit every now and again, but not much.
And then something subtle and truly dangerous creeps in: an old story. The part of ourselves that enjoys the narrative of this particular limitation mounts an argument in favor of how we’ll never get from here to there. It does this by winding the clock back to that first day we noticed a gap, then skipping forward to today, and says something like, “You see? A full year has gone by and I’m no better. Just goes to show that I never will be!”
As in: never mind that I’ve only talked to 10 potential investors in the last six months, look at my meager fundraising results. There’s something wrong with my pitch and with my capacity as a fundraiser.
As in: I’ve only given a stand-up talk in front of an audience twice since last March, yet when I watch someone else nail their speech I’m quick to decide she’s more talented than I am and that she’s never been as nervous or as fumbling as I think I am today.
As in: my appropriate and legitimate fears about challenging authority notwithstanding, I’ve never used the safer spaces around me to practice speaking up. Yet I beat myself up when, at that one moment when the stakes are highest, I don’t speak my mind.
It’s clear when you describe it this way: the thing that keeps us from persisting, from growing, from ultimately transforming is that quiet, alluring voice in our heads that smiles and says “You see? You’re still no better.”
Your reply is simple: I am. Just a bit. And I’m going to keep at it until I get there.
If we can absolutely accomplish “ONE THING” each and every business day toward whatever ones’ goal is . . . THAT’s PROGRESS! Eventually, we’ll be able to do two, then three.
When working for Xerox in Phoenix, I was blessed to have a great manager named Tony Hampton who primarily focused on one thing “moving the chain” as he called it . . . forward progress of any type was “moving the chain”. If we received an answer from a difficult-to-reach client or met with a customer over lunch or got a product demonstration scheduled, we had “moved the chain”. That reassured him and us that we were at least moving in the right direction and that was the first step in achieving success.
I like it. Why a “chain” though?! 🙂
Liking it to a football game, moving the chain . . . getting a 1st. down . . . not having to score a touchdown each and every time but moving forward is certainly something to celebrate . . .