If you feel paralyzed when it comes to taking action and doing experiments, the only thing I can really tell you is this:
Just start. Start small if need be, but start.
Start right where you are.
Because no matter what you do, THE most important step you can take is to just start somewhere… wherever you can, even if that “somewhere” is in this complete state of lost confusion.
When I felt lost in my accounting job, I started experimenting in all sorts of small ways:
I read books. I went to classes. I went to conferences. I tried out Toastmasters. I went to young professional events. I asked for advice. I sought out mentors. I began blogging.
Sure, I still felt as if I had no idea what I was doing. I still felt as though I was groping in the dark (and – surprise — sometimes I feel this way still). Sometimes I wondered if I was getting anywhere at all or if I’d be lost in this abyss forever.
No matter – just start, no matter how lost you feel.
When you get there you’ll see even further.
It’s not as if I immediately “found my way!” – it was a process. It still is a process, and yet each step of the journey the path – my path – becomes clearer.
Action begets action. Remember: You don’t have to get it perfect; you just have to get it started.
An object in motion stays in motion.
Try something. Try anything.
What’s the worst that could happen?
Once you commit to taking action and making movement, you’ll have taken the first step forward. It may not be the “right step,” but it might be one in a series of right steps. It may be a “wrong” step that teaches you what you need to know in order to find the “right” step.
And step by step by step, you’ll get there – I promise.
Guys, this step is critical.
As in absolutely, unmistakably critical.
Do you know why I place such an emphasis on the “connecting” piece of experimentation?
Because of every single person I know who has found their way into deeply fulfilling work (and a deeply fulfilling life), none of them have done it alone.
Zip… nada… zero.
Each and every one of them have had mentors, friends, and people to learn from and support them every step of the way. They have relentlessly sought out teachers and people who feed their vision and their values. This is not a passive process; it’s very active and sometimes uncomfortable, but it’s what is necessary for growth.
Without my mentors and teachers, friends and supporters and people who believe in me, I would never have been able to make it to where I am today.
Nope, not a chance. Not one shot in hell.
Today I do my best to surround myself with positive, determined, genuine and caring people. I make a point to seek out mentorship and relationships with those who have done things I hope to do one day. I seek out people who are not merely mediocre, but who dare to dream of — and to do — great things.
If you don’t feel like you’re making progress in the right direction, ask yourself what type of people you’re actively surrounding yourself with, learning from, and taking in.
It’s very likely you aren’t focusing enough on connecting.
Jim Rohn says, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
Yes — that.
Go find people who embody the qualities you seek to possess, and surround yourself with these types of people as much as possible. This alone will change your life.
One thing I’ve come to see over the years is that every difficulty – every period of confusion – every period of despair – was in fact an integral part of my journey and another step that I needed in order to find my way.
Close your eyes and ask yourself a few questions right now:
What could happen if, even in the midst of your experimentation and groping and doubt – if you could know that this was a critical part of the process?
If you were here in this situation to learn one thing, what would it be?
And finally, how can you use these lessons to help propel you forward?
See if you can learn to be reverse-paranoid: What if the whole world were working in your favor?
See the good in every situation, even as you are finding your way into a better one.
Every step is necessary. Every step is a piece of the process.
What are you learning? How are you growing? Remember that a flower cannot bloom and find its way into the sun’s warming rays until it has first squeezed out from the depths of the dirt.
Which leads me into my next point…
Faith is an underpinning of the entire E & E process, so much so that I truly don’t believe the process can flourish without it. Because, listen, guys: The process isn’t always easy, and if you’ve come this far already, then I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. It’s sometimes discouraging, sometimes despairing, very often confusing, and often just plain hard.
(It’s also often exciting, exhilarating, and energizing, so don’t let me discourage you.)
But the point is that I don’t know anyone who has done it alone, and I don’t know anyone who has done it without a solid foundation of faith:
Faith that you will find your way.
Faith that the forces that be are conspiring in your favor and that they are ultimately for and not against you.
Faith that, even when you can’t see your way out, the “way out” is there.
Faith that if you just keep experimenting, and you keep observing, and if you keep connecting and seeking out the support that you need, that you will find your way home.
And faith that you aren’t alone. (because you’re not.)
It is my deepest belief that a strong-standing source of faith, whatever that may look like for you, is at the very center of finding your way.
Good question, and in fact, this is one of the most common questions or “push backs” I often get when I tell people about the E & E process and about Knowcations. Here’s how I see it:
First, ask yourself whether it has to be an either/or scenario: Do we have to choose between setting goals/being clear on where we’re going OR experimenting and taking a Knowcation?
Or is it possible that both could work together at the very same time?
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
Likewise, Jim Collins and Jerry Porrass discovered that one of the CORE markers of the visionary companies they studied was their adoption of what they call “The Genius of the And”:
“Highly visionary companies liberate themselves with the ability to embrace both extremes of a number of dimensions at the same time. Instead of choosing between A or B, they figure out a way to create both A and B.
For example, on the one hand, they have purpose beyond profit, and yet on the other hand, they have pragmatic pursuit of profit. On the one hand they have a relatively fixed ideology/set of values, and on the other hand, vigorous change and movement. On the one hand they have conservatism around those core values, and yet on the other hand, bold, committing, risky moves.
They have on the one hand clear vision and a sense of direction, and yet on the other hand, opportunistic groping and experimentation. On the one hand they pursue big, hairy, audacious goals, and yet on the other hand, they pursue incremental, evolutionary progress.
They invest in the long term and have demands for short term performance. They are philosophical, visionary, futuristic, and they have superb daily execution – they get the nuts & bolts right. They are aligned with their core values and they are aligned to be adaptable to their surrounding environment.
A whole series of “ands” – “The Genius of the And” characterizes the truly great institutions.”
Allow me to illustrate this concept with an example from my friend, Tom Ewer. Tom writes a blog called Leaving Work Behind, where he has documented his journey from being a property manager to being self-employed, currently making his living as a freelance blog writer.
In May of 2011, Tom set a very specific goal for himself: he wanted to quit his job and be able to support himself on his own terms within a year — and in December of 2011, he did just that.
The kicker is, he never imagined that he’d achieve his goal by being a freelance writer. In fact, he had several other ideas about how he thought he’d like to make a living online, all of which initially failed. But through experimentation and evolution, he found his way into the unforeseen pursuit of freelance writing, which allowed his very specific goal to become a reality.
Writes Tom:
“Sometimes you get lucky, but it is how you react to the luck you are handed that really makes the difference.
My online business was essentially built on that principle. I tried any number of ways to make money online before I stumbled across freelance writing, practically by accident. I didn’t really think that I could ever make a living from freelance writing and yet I submitted a few pitches via the ProBlogger Jobs Board and managed to land a client. That was (in part) the lucky bit, but it was what I did next that made all the difference.”
(You can read Tom’s whole article here: http://www.leavingworkbehind.com/client-specificity/)
Do you see now how specific goals (e.g., “Quit my job and work on my own terms”) can perfectly coexist with experimentation and evolution (e.g., trying a bunch of different ways to make a living until “stumbling upon” freelance blogging, and evolving from there)?
In Built to Last, I remember Jim Collins saying something like this: “Use BHAGS (big, hairy, audacious goals) to define a mountain to climb, then use experimentation to invent a way to the top.”
This was how John F. Kennedy landed a man on the moon in 1969, no? He set a very specific goal and had a clear vision of where he wanted to go: “Within this decade, we will walk on the moon.”
And yet the “how” of making that happen?
That’s where experimentation and evolution came in handy.
So this is one way that goal setting, intentions, and specificity can coexist quite nicely with experimentation, evolution, and “opportunistic groping.”
On the other hand, it’s been my past experience that many people have a difficult time coming up with a clear initial goal or destination off the bat. And while I’m a huge advocate of, for example, Stephen Covey’s principle of “Begin With the End in Mind,” this doesn’t do much good for those of us who simply haven’t yet been able to formulate a clear enough idea of exactly where it is that we want to go.
I’d venture to guess that it may be your experience, too, as that is exactly the type of crowd that this e-guide is catered toward.
My answer to that?
I see the E & E process as sort of funnel-shaped: You start off with a lot of experimentation and little clarity, and you may have little, if any, clear direction or specific goals at this point (other than following your aliveness). The funnel (and your experimentation) is very wide and unfocused for a time, especially at the beginning.
But the more you experiment and the more new things and new people you’re exposed to, the clearer the path becomes. Your experimentation and evolution often becomes more focused – for example, Tom might have begun by trying lots of different experiments in several arenas, which eventually evolved into trying experiments in the “online business” arena, which in turn might finally lead to experimentation within the freelance blogging arena.
Over time and with deliberate E & E, your confusion will begin to turn to clarity.
And in turn, with the new clarity gained through E & E, it will become easier and easier to set specific goals and intentions — even if it was difficult months or years ago.
That’s how it happened for me, at least. I started off in a muddy clowd of confusion, unable to set a specific goal as to where I wanted to end up.
And yet by building a foundation of faith beneath me, and by surrounding myself with mentors and friends and people who bring me alive, and by experimenting and evaluating and evolving, I’ve eventually found my way into a pursuit and a destination that I never could have imagined from the get go. I often think to myself, “It’s a good thing that I didn’t insist that I pick a goal and stick to it back then!” I needed to experiment and explore in order to find a direction in which I could set my intentions and goals.
Intuitively this makes sense, because how can you know what you want if you haven’t yet been exposed to it?
And how can you be expected to set goals if you haven’t the foggiest idea of where you want to end up?
E & E is a process that helps you begin to find the direction necessary to be able to set more specific and clear intentions and goals. It is not a replacement for (or opposite of) goal-setting; rather, it is preliminary to the goal-setting process. It’s a way to help you define the mountain you aspire to climb.
Make sense?
In addition to paying attention to your aliveness, I’d suggest using the decision making techniques in Dan & Chip Heath’s book, Decisive. Not only are these guys two of my favorite authors ever, but their methods are always backed by solid research.
One of my favorite techniques they teach for decision making, which I utilized just the other day to determine whether I should take on more part time work outside of The Unlost, is what the authors call the “10/10/10 Rule.”
If you make this decision, how you feel in ten minutes?
Ten months?
Ten years?
Using this framework as a basis for decision making helps you take a look at the bigger picture.
My own process of decision making looked something like this when viewed through the 10/10/10 lens:
In ten minutes, I will feel relieved if I take on more part time “side” work because I’ll have a more stable source of income and I’ll be better off financially in the short run.
But in ten months, I will feel restless because I will have spent my time and energy doing work that took away from and inhibited my ability to do the work that truly matters to me.
And in ten years, I will feel regretful that I’d never fully committed myself to a pursuit that could have been. I will look back on the past ten years as a time thick with unfulfilled potential.
For me, unrealized potential is the worst feeling of all – even worse than failing or going broke.
Now, let’s take a look at how I’d feel in 10/10/10 if I didn’t take on this extra work and if I did fully commit myself to my own Unlost projects. Here’s what I realized:
Let’s say I “failed” at my own venture and ended up broke. So there’s no getting around it: This would really suck in ten minutes. A lot. No lying there.
But in ten months, I’d be fine. I could always go out and get more work. I have two college degrees and I’m a highly qualified employee, if that’s what it ends up coming down to. I could make up my loss and be back in a similar place financially within a year or two at the very most.
And in ten years, this whole ordeal would have just been a small blip on the radar – in fact, I probably wouldn’t even think of it much. The best part? Even if I “failed,” I would never have to live with the regret that I’d never fully tried.
I’d be able to say, “I did my best, and my life was well lived.”
What clarity!
Suddenly I knew without a doubt exactly what I needed to do.
And in order to find this level of clarity, I desperately needed to take a longer term view of the situation.
Should you take a job that pays more but sucks out more of your soul – or a job that pays less but feeds your soul? Should you take time off to explore the world? Should you move to a new city? Should you break up with your girlfriend?
The 10/10/10 method may help you to make the best decision for you.
The factors to consider for each situation will be different – for example, my own process would have been much different if I had a family to support, etc.
The answer is not always that the “longer term” view is the correct one – rather, what’s important when making decisions is being able to step back and take a look at the bigger picture – being able to get some distance from the situation.
Next: Move on to Section 7.2: More Bits of E & E Goodness!