Thursday, December 29, 2016

Ignoring the "Check Engine" Light

The RIGHT decision, is often the UNCOMFORTABLE decision.

This has been my experience and mantra for several years.

The RIGHT decision is often the decision you want to to DELAY.

The decision you want to close your eyes and plug your ears to.

But it is waiting.

Waiting for you to stop lying to yourself that the problem will simply go away.

Waiting for you to get serious about actually solving the problem.

So you can move on.

And grow.

And contribute again.

Perhaps it's addressing the "service engine soon" light in your car that is flashing.

Or fixing that knee pain that is growing worse--and may require surgery--and no running for a month.

Or firing the subordinate because he is in the wrong role and forcing others to pick up his slack.

Or making that phone call to the bank to ask for help after you have been out of work for five months and don't know where the hell the mortgage payment will come from.

Or finally ending that unhealthy relationship that actually ended 10 years ago.

These are uncomfortable decisions.

Because they require uncomfortable ACTIONS.  

But...they are the RIGHT action.

To get you to a better future.

Choosing to ignore the "service engine soon" light because you fear what the mechanic will tell you won't make the lurking disaster waiting to happen in your engine go away.

Choosing to ignore the knee pain won't make the injury go away--it will just keep you from running longer--maybe permanently.

Choosing to keep the employee in the wrong role won't make that employee a better employee--you will just prevent him from finding the role that he COULD thrive in.

Choosing to not call the bank and ask for help when you are out of money won't keep the lender from taking your family's home.

Choosing to stay in the crappy relationship another 10 years after exhaustive counselling won't serve to fix  the relationship--you will only be 10 years older, lonelier,  and FAIL to serve as an example to your kids what a HEALTHY relationship actually looks like.

In other words... deferring the RIGHT decision, the UNCOMFORTABLE decision...only makes the tough situation.....tougher.

I recently viewed a TED Talk by entrepreneur Jonathan Fields where he talked about the fear of taking action.

He mentioned that there are three decisions and outcomes to every potential endeavor:

1.  We can choose to TAKE ACTION and SUCCEED
2.  We can choose to TAKE ACTION and FAIL
3.  We can choose to DO NOTHING

What particularly resonated with me in the talk was when he discussed how choosing to DO NOTHING almost always is the most destructive course of action.

He correctly points out that many people choose to DO NOTHING when faced with tough decisions as they ERRONEOUSLY believe that they and their circumstances will remain static while they elect to stay in their lousy-but-familiar-misery and defer the hard decision.

But Mr. Fields argues that in nature...NOTHING IS STATIC.

We are either going up or going down.

We are either GROWING or DYING.

In our running (and overall health).

In our jobs.

In our relationships.

It may take longer, but doing nothing is far worse than failure,  as failure is almost always temporary and solvable.

Doing nothing may serve to defer IMMEDIATE pain.

But the eventual destruction from INACTION is wider, the wounds inflicted are deeper,  and you are now 5, 10, even 20 years OLDER than if you had chose ACTION.

But here is the good part:

Choosing to make the tough decision and EXECUTE the tough decision sets you free.  That's right--free.

In the short run, it may hurt like hell, but taking ACTION allows YOU to re-draw the map and set the course by YOUR compass.

And not by the compass of an incompetent employee.

Or an injury.

Or the bank.

Or dead relationship.

So how about this:

This year, let's stop ignoring the "service engine soon" lights in our lives.

Today.

And get them fixed.

So we can lace up again.

And run free.

AMJ

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