Smile .. you're in training
Jul 28, 2016Here's today's story ..
In one of my very first jobs I was charged with a project to roll out about 70 new computers to the London head office of a Swedish Pension company. It was very important that it went well and there were no hiccups, downtime or outages I was told!
There’s so many different permutations and combinations with computers - different hardware, software, networking, printing, modems, games! And this was in the old days before everything was far, far more automatic.
It was a daunting task, there were literally hundreds of things that could go wrong that I could think of, and thousands more that I couldn’t think of.
One day while trying to get my head around it all, I was discussing the project with Stevie from the Treasury department. ‘Well if you want to use me as a guinea pig’ he said, ‘iron out some of the kinks before you do it for real, I’d be happy to help.’
‘That’s a great idea, I’ll take you up on that!’ I said.
That afternoon I went down to see Stevie. ‘We’d all like to be in on the pilot’ he said the second I walked into through the treasury office door.
‘Pilot?’ I said.
‘You know, the first wave of sorting out all the problems.’ Stevie said.
‘Oh, I see .. great!’ I said.
A week or so later and the word had spread that Treasury had got to go first. I was quickly then inundated by desperate requests from almost every other department, pleading to be included in the pilot!
By the time the pilot was complete, practically everyone had been done! There were LOADS of problems along the way, but everyone was happy. There were only a handful of people to be covered in the ‘main’ phase of the project, where ‘nothing should go wrong!’
I learned something so interesting to me during that project that I’ve never forgotten.
Progress is growth and growth is rarely comfortable and convenient, predictable and safe. If you try and insist that it is, then it stifles the growth.
It is much more difficult to go from where you are now to where you want to go in one perfect leap. It is much easier to move TOWARDS it, working out things as you go and trusting that you’ll be able to deal with what comes up when it inevitably does.
If you create an environment for yourself where it has to be done perfectly or not at all, guess what happens? Nothing at all!
But if you allow yourself to be in training, you create a mental space where mistakes are ok, because you are in training. And you’re not meant to do it perfectly when you’re in training, are you? Because you’re learning something new!
And because life is growth, you’ll always be learning something new.
Perfectionism will turn you into a cynical procrastinator! But if you accept that it’s ok to move towards your goal and grow as you go, not only do you make much more progress and end up where you want to be, but it is SIGNIFICANTLY less stressful. Which means you can keep that lovely smile of yours on your face on the way :)
There’s so many different permutations and combinations with computers - different hardware, software, networking, printing, modems, games! And this was in the old days before everything was far, far more automatic.
It was a daunting task, there were literally hundreds of things that could go wrong that I could think of, and thousands more that I couldn’t think of.
One day while trying to get my head around it all, I was discussing the project with Stevie from the Treasury department. ‘Well if you want to use me as a guinea pig’ he said, ‘iron out some of the kinks before you do it for real, I’d be happy to help.’
‘That’s a great idea, I’ll take you up on that!’ I said.
That afternoon I went down to see Stevie. ‘We’d all like to be in on the pilot’ he said the second I walked into through the treasury office door.
‘Pilot?’ I said.
‘You know, the first wave of sorting out all the problems.’ Stevie said.
‘Oh, I see .. great!’ I said.
A week or so later and the word had spread that Treasury had got to go first. I was quickly then inundated by desperate requests from almost every other department, pleading to be included in the pilot!
By the time the pilot was complete, practically everyone had been done! There were LOADS of problems along the way, but everyone was happy. There were only a handful of people to be covered in the ‘main’ phase of the project, where ‘nothing should go wrong!’
I learned something so interesting to me during that project that I’ve never forgotten.
Progress is growth and growth is rarely comfortable and convenient, predictable and safe. If you try and insist that it is, then it stifles the growth.
It is much more difficult to go from where you are now to where you want to go in one perfect leap. It is much easier to move TOWARDS it, working out things as you go and trusting that you’ll be able to deal with what comes up when it inevitably does.
If you create an environment for yourself where it has to be done perfectly or not at all, guess what happens? Nothing at all!
But if you allow yourself to be in training, you create a mental space where mistakes are ok, because you are in training. And you’re not meant to do it perfectly when you’re in training, are you? Because you’re learning something new!
And because life is growth, you’ll always be learning something new.
Perfectionism will turn you into a cynical procrastinator! But if you accept that it’s ok to move towards your goal and grow as you go, not only do you make much more progress and end up where you want to be, but it is SIGNIFICANTLY less stressful. Which means you can keep that lovely smile of yours on your face on the way :)
Until next time ..
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