Like any personal growth junkie, I reflected on 2021 and planned for the year ahead. I find it informative, useful and fun (or nerdy as my husband calls it).   

It got me thinking about our shared ‘Illusion of control over time’. 

I worked with spreadsheets, financial models and business plans for so long that I convinced myself I had 100% control over the tempo of how things unfolded. Then last year, my website, which I estimated would take 2 weeks to set up took 3 months. Getting my first client, which I thought would take up to 4 months, took 3 weeks. I am yet to meet anyone that has not lived through a version of this predicament. 

I’ve heard somewhere that ‘There is YOUR plan, and there is THE plan…’

The trifecta of School + Uni + Corporate Job reinforced our impression that ‘Time is linear’. That if you plan things and work hard, you can control the timeline and pace of an outcome.

What we all come to realise eventually is that MANY elements beyond our control need to happen for things to unfold the way WE want. And you might only control a fraction of them. Sometimes as little as 10%. What would that do to your state of mind if you just accepted that? Relaxed into it? 

In music, there are tempos: from super slow ‘larghissimo’ to ultra fast ‘prestissimo’. You can play your notes Staccato or Legato. Perhaps we could take a leaf off these sheets of music; some projects will be slow in tempo, some ventures will live through different rhythms at each stage, some tasks should be accomplished staccato, but not others.  

Operating under the illusion that you have 100% control over the tempo and pace of an outcome – or as I call it, “Being a ‘timeline Stakhanovite’” – is not without consequences. We can end up pushing prospects who need time, forcing things onto teams that need space, and getting overly frustrated when its ‘too slow’. In a wonderfully ironic turn of events, this approach becomes counterproductive. 

Depending on what you’re working on –  an investment, a project, a start-up – how much control do you REALLY have over the outcome? 50%? 90%? What else needs to happen beyond your input for things to work? How do you focus on what lies within your sphere of responsibility and let the other elements do their part?

#newyear #music #investment #businesscoaching #control #timemanagement #tempo #entrepreneurship #timferriss #lettinggo #stakhanovite

PS – Alexey Stakhanov was an ultra productive and competitive Soviet Union miner in the 30s. His record busting production levels fitted with the need for moral boosting propaganda so the party launched the Stakhanovite movement to motivate workers. This term is now used to describe an ‘exceptionally hard-working or zealous person’.