Outgrow Your Shell

A lobster goes about its day, chillin'. One day it is time. The old shell must come off, molt, and grow bigger.

A human goes about its day, frenetically racing. We feel the passing of time and watch with distrusting eye to the Sun as it paces the sky from rise to set.

Growth is advertised to us as a good thing. Grow your wealth with sound financial practice. Grow your career with networking and learning new skills. Grow your health with exercise and nutritious consumption.

What is perhaps not as often advertised is the cost of that growth. Growth is hard. When we grow into a new version of ourselves, a past version must die. In the same way as we celebrate where we are going, we must mourn for where we have been. Nostalgia – but we must move on.

The more we grow, the more we realize our lacking. Always things we wish we knew. The smarter I get the stupider I feel. Ignorance truly is bliss.

Growth is not linear. We expect that with consistent effort we will realize consistent gains and this is simply not true. In the worst of cases, we may make progress down one path, only to realize it was not ours to travel. Situations change, luck deals a bad hand, or we realize this is not where we want to be. Regardless, this experience shapes us and we grow.

Does this non-linearity decrease velocity toward our goals? Absolutely. Although we take longer to move in our desired direction, this random walk forces us to explore greater space and makes for a richer human experience. In the best of cases, we may prepare for years and seemingly not move an inch. But. This training prepares us for when opportunity presents. We recognize and let our diligence show.

Addressing a scenario where near-term decreased velocity is strongly undesirable, like executing a project at work. I have found a helpful framework is to conduct this exercise at the outset.

After fully conceptualizing and scoping the work, but before starting anything, close your eyes. Imagine a time in the future when the project has just finished and it was an abject failure. What caused it to fail?

Think big about all the ways that what are you trying to accomplish could not work. Write them on a whiteboard. Stare at them. There are a million things beyond our control that can throw us off our tracks, however, I've found this exercise crucial to identify the Big Problems that could plague our planned path. It is helpful to keep these as ready watch-outs as the project progresses, sharp cutting rocks reminding us from running our ship aground.

We hope to do the right things and that our efforts move us in a positive direction, but we don't know. And that is the point. I don't believe our lives are predetermined and that it is up to us, through our actions, to navigate what the world throws at us. All we can do is not stop trying. 

Good luck with your journey. Let me know what works for you.

 - Jeremy