One of the many good things about going through an existential crisis is at a certain point one loses touch with reality and hence develops an inherent distrust with all the external factors(people, process and environment) happening in his/her life. Having gone through a summer of COVID, mental breakdown and two months of being jobless and worthless, here are some nuggets which have helped navigate through the toughest year of existence on the planet earth. The journey of looking Outwards to Inwards has helped set a consistent baseline- maybe something most of us all need when we enter the dawn of middle age (crisis or not is a personal thing).
Maybe this blog just a waste of 4 minutes of the reader’s time on the last day of the year, however this paradigm change has helped me from being caught going deep into the organisational rabbit-hole of short time visibility, success and pay hikes into maybe a broader spectrum of dividing the time into OpenSource Contributions, Blogging, Chess, Reading and a lot of Medium Writing while still being the omni-present guy at work. It’s simple, the answer to every problem in the world lies within you and not the 99,99,999 external factors- until one helps himself/herself no one can. So here we go, taking a stab at this Leadership/Personality development 101
Start from Self Awareness
Independent of the level of greatness, success or failure, we all are prisoners of two key elements of human behaviour- instincts and biases. Rather than curbing them, it’s important to acknowledge and understand them based on the intra/inter-personal contexts of our professional/personal lives. While self-awareness is the key, over-correcting the instincts results in internal resistance towards what we truly are. So balance acts of self-awareness, learn and build the subconscious for improved instincts in the future.
Also, Steph Curry shooting a 3 pointer when double guarded in garbage NBA GameTime is fine as long as he can pass the ball to the Open Man in a crunch Game Situation.
End the Blame Game
Most of us extend ourselves into the dogmatic fan syndrome which is “Blaming the Referee” for our team’s losses. However, we forget that every team goes through the same, our personal biases just exemplify our team’s grievances more than others. Extrapolate this with everything in life ( personal or professional), Blaming the circumstances/environments which we have created through our own actions is an escape route from acting upon and solving the inherent problem.
Also, Steph Curry won a NBA championship before Kevin Durant joined the Golden State Warriors, and may also end up winning after he has left. So, did KD actually ruin the league or was it Lebron all the way?
Drive for Daily Learnings
Chasing results always creates this narrative where the end result drives our dopamine levels. And having results go all the way in a team scenario ( office, work or friends) is hoping no-one catches your bluff while playing poker all night at a Casino in Vegas. The paradigm shift from result to learnings creates a gambit of opportunities to pick up on a day to day basis. Also, learning doesn’t have to be like “How to Climb Mount Everest in one year?”; it should start with something like “How to climb out of our WFH chair and take 100 daily steps?” . At the end of the day, Cherish the Small Wins and bigger battles will draw inspiration from these small motivations.
To break the 2973 made 3 pointer record, even all-time great Steph Curry had to first cross the 50,100,200 made 3 hurdles.
For feedback, please drop a message to amit[dot]894[at]gmail[dot]com or reach out to any of the links at https://about.me/amit_raj.
