Skip to main content

An Artisan's Workbench

By Bamboo In The Wind

It is hard to not think about how to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be. The gap often appears enormous. 

Unsurprisingly, you are attracted to easy tricks and treats to get past it!

Only to find that the shortcuts that should have helped seemingly don't work and then you are stumped...

The main issue is focusing on the result without control over it. 

While expecting results is always a dreamy desire, success depends on the route you take to get results.

The course involves a lot of original work with little recognition and reward.

It consists of working in quiet, dark, dusty corners and to get your hands in the mud.

Some days feel like endless early mornings and late nights, all starting and ending with a streak of mistakes and false hopes that ensue.

Learning by doing is a great way to provide real hope. The route appears marred with costly quest of unfathomable. Learning is time-consuming; costs time and money, and failures are totally humbling, ready to get you ousted in a blink.

And yet, following a long-term path of trying builds confidence by tackling the fear of inaction. Or even the disappointment of feeble outcome driven by shortcuts that raise our expectation of automatic success.

The careful, self-made, experiment-laden route is how we improve and get better. The course is unorthodox, uncertain, and lonely. It is slow and tedious and goes against the accepted norms.

And yet, if stay that course, before you know it, builds your future one brick at a time. Soon, each brick acts as a foundation reflecting the journey of how it came about to be rooted where it is. And that is worthy effort. Fulfilling.

Self-made experiments allow you to build the process that works for you - and often for others. Each one can be a small step that fits a piece of the long-term puzzle. You just don't see it yet. Nonetheless, it gets you focused on how to improve the reality of yesterday.

And when you make tiny progress regularly, you understand the results are beginning to blow your mind.

It is all clear then. You cannot expect results. You must never. You land those results because of the course you choose to take.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Checks and balances!

By Bamboo In The Wind
Defining a good purpose, setting a target goal and getting people working on them is usually not enough! There are too many aspects involved in getting the results we want. For example, there is an aspect of painting the big picture, working on motivation management, productivity tracking, building experimentation labs, and erecting resilient systems that systematize the workflows. Just putting bodies to work and defining milestones rarely achieves the right results. The other aspects that help march towards the milestones in an orderly manner, they are equally important. At the very least, they make objectives widely understandable and results more attainable. The job of a thought leader is to enable progress and enable recovery. Therefore, it is never enough to have just ideas. Those with ideas also have the responsibility to assemble the work environment in such a way as to create situations containing the energy disperses. Energy dispersal from lack of clarity, loss of motivation, ...
Post a Comment
Next »

Choking the communication channel.

By Bamboo In The Wind
There are instances where everything looks in order. Structures are rightly in place. Right roles are defined. Responsibilities are distributed. Bi-directional open communication is expected to take place. And with that, collective work is expected to turn out productive. Yet, when the action begins, everything breaks apart. Productivity dwindles, cooperation is missing, and ad-hoc interactions are common-place That creates chaos. No one appears in charge even though there is someone responsible. It clearly is a sign of broken communication channels. A well-orchestrated workplace focuses on methods to communicate grounds-up and top-down. It encourages patient listening, internalizing and responding rather than reacting. All effective open communication channels are a result of making such communication possible. Often, the structures are set such that you centralize communication of every bit of your activity to someone in the hierarchy. Over time it turns into a permission-based inter...
1 comment
Next »

Unentangle.

By Bamboo In The Wind
Some circumstances warrant protecting your time and effort. Saying no to everything and ruthlessly keeping space becomes your priority. Space that can hold the opportunity to take something that excites you. There are distractions thrown your way. Carrots are dangling in front of you, making you believe that a brighter future lies in following a defined path. They are others' views of the opportunities, not yours. When you are picky about what you want to do - the right way to go is to say no until you can say whole body yes to something that ignites you. Eventually, what you do may work or not. But you made your choice. Some other circumstances warrant a mechanism for creating opportunities. You ought to find ways to use your time and effort to do something worthwhile. Say yes to what comes your way, and keeping up with exploration provides experience. Experience in what among many options to pick from. By knowing what those options involve. When you are open about what you want t...
Post a Comment
Next »