Spinning Plates
I’m trying to remember who it was who told us that we were only supposed to feel successful when we were spinning as many plates as possible.
You know what I mean. Being a supermum or dad, making money, exercising, achieving, buying nice things, fixing the house up, climbing up the corporate ladder, building a big business so on and so forth.
So how is it working out for you?
I speak to myself here because I tend to work super hard and even my leisure activities of boxing and grappling involve exhausting training and regular gradings. It isn’t until we fall ill or crack up that we stop to think about what we are doing and why we are doing it.
We aren’t building up to any revelations here. I just want you to take a few moment to step out of your current life and think about what is important to you and if you are doing stuff for yourself or to prove something to other people. If you are then trust me, they aren’t really thinking about you much if at all.
Paul Browning
Image courtesy of Jameson42 on flickr.
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9 Comments
Please remember,
When starting contract work or starting your business to set up contract work. If you are getting married and thinking about starting a family. Finish the start up work for the business and get some contracts under your belt for experiecne before starting the family and having have kids. The time it takes to devot to your pregnant wife and then the new born baby is enormous, and will cause you to procrastinate the completion of any deal or project, (if you put your family first). (If you don’t then expect a divorce soon afterwards)
Believe me I speak from experience. I had my own business for 12.5 years, and revenues suffered after having the first born. SOLUTION: make sure you are live near relatives who can help take care of your wife and newborn while you work, otherwise, doomsville is around the next corner.
I consider myself a workaholic but I don’t look for the approval of others, I love to work and keep busy. Here lies the problem…You work hard and you tell yourself it’s the best way to support your family. You take time to stop and smell the roses only once every 10 years or so and you realize that your 2 daughters are no longer 10 & 12 years old but are 20 and 22. Whether you’re a father, mother, son, daughter, etc. you need to step out of you’re current life and not just think what is important to you, you have to tell your family, friends, pets, whoever, what they mean to you and do it often.
Yes. I think that there are those of us that feel if we work very hard for a boss, it changes something, but it is important to remember what is best for ourselves and not lose sight of that. If you want to do something better for yourself, you are going to have to learn how to say NO sometimes to others.
I went through this processes a while back.
What was I doing all this for? was it for people to continually phone me and be on line for hours trying to sort out their IT related problems?
I soon found out when I told everyone that from now on, if they wanted assistance, it would cost them, guess what happened, yes the phone stopped ringing so often and I soon had my time to myself to do what I wanted.
B”H
Paul,
The results don’t lie. We may FEEL busy, but the bottom line is: are we ACTUALLY meeting our deadlines exam-wise with a CERT to show? Sonar ACTUALLY have our bills paid? On time?
I feel like by being more “actual results” oriented, we would break out of the “business” = “success” delusion to change our lifestyle enough to ACTUALLY get where we want to go – not just feel like we are already there OR that we are “honestly” just “too busy” to get there.
Deep down, we all respect the guy who GETS RESULTS, not the plate spinner. You don’t see an add for “looking for an engineer to LOOK busy.”
Take care,
Dovid
PS. A while back I joined SimpleOlogy.com. They had free membership to their basic package. That guy talks about this point a lot. I liked it 🙂
paul…u jst dont know ow u ve really helped me at subnetting….i ve read lots of book relating to that b4 now ….but ur nessages were jst inspiring….it was like me been spoon-feed…i cant bliv myself teaching someone subnetting….oh my God.. i am so elated..
thanks paul.. u re the man
i am so happppyyyy…….
AND THAT BCOS OF UUUUUU……
Here’s a related saying – “if you want to get something done give it to a busy person”.
Someone said that to me recently as I agreed to take on oe more project. The project was interesting and challenging; I knew I’d learn a lot. But hearing that said to me gave me pause.
I realized that I was very busy and perhaps guilty of “spinning plates”, to use your phrase. Ultimately I took the project, completed it, had fun doing it … but am now making time to step back and concentrate on work/life balance.
David?s comment is well worth keeping in mind. Firms don?t advertise for ?an engineer to LOOK busy?, they want engineers (or others) who will deliver results. A good question to end the day. What results did I deliver today?