Episode 76: Try Less, Achieve More

Transcript

I don't know if this is going to be relatable or not.
This is something that I've thought about quite a bit and noticed throughout my life,
but I don't know if this is like a common experience or what.
I really haven't talked with maybe anybody about this, but anyway.
I'm going to put this in context primarily of my previous job,
which I held for about 15 years.
Well, I was at the company for 15 years.
I held different positions while I was there, but whatever.
There were many times in that job where maybe I would have taken ownership over something
or spearheading a project or become the primary advocate for a particular change or process or whatever.
The point is I was kind of leading the charge on something,
and I would get into that and maybe there would be setbacks or pushbacks or whatever.
The more that I worked at it, the more I was trying to get to the desired outcome,
whether that was my desired outcome or the desired outcome of leadership above me or whatever.
But the more I tried, and that's the key piece to this, is the more I tried.
And these weren't always like square peg into round hole situations.
This was just, I have a tendency to, as I get into something, I lean into it more and more and more and more.
And I try harder and harder and harder and harder, right?
Like that's just sort of how I'm wired.
But what would happen a lot of the times is I would notice that I was trying and trying and trying and trying,
and maybe it just wasn't going anywhere.
Or maybe there was just this constant pushback.
Or maybe it just, every corner I turned would lead to more and more frustration.
I'm not saying this was every project, but this would happen here and there.
And what I noticed, often, often what would happen in these scenarios where I'm trying and trying and trying,
and the harder I'm trying, and the harder, like the harder I'm working,
and the more I'm, you know, really locked in, and the more I'm focused and moving toward the solution.
Eventually, I would get to a point, if I just couldn't move the needle, or if I just could,
where I would kind of take a step back and be like, oh my god, forget this, right?
Like, I don't care anymore.
I'm just going to take a big giant step back and just let things play out.
Like, whatever's going to happen is going to happen.
I'm getting it from every angle.
I'm done.
And just kind of get into this, like, whatever attitude.
And then, so often, the strangest thing would happen is as soon as I said, I don't care, I'm done.
Well, not I'm done, but, like, I'm just taking a step back and I'm going to stop pushing on this.
I'm going to stop, you know, trying so hard.
All of a sudden, everything would just work out.
Like, everything would just kind of shake out.
All of a sudden, if something was gumming up the works, all of a sudden that would become unstuck.
Or if there were certain people who were in opposition to things, they would suddenly come around.
Or if there were, you know, money problems that couldn't get funding, all of a sudden there was.
And I just noticed this pattern.
It would happen fairly frequently where I'm trying and trying and trying.
I'm trying so hard and it's not working and it's not shaken out.
And then I would stop trying and all of a sudden it would all work out.
So, again, this is the kind of lead up the scenario.
I don't know.
Like, does this sound familiar to you?
I'd love to hear about that from people.
But with that aside, what's kind of more interesting to me is what this means, right?
Or what might bring this about.
And I think there's a few ways to analyze this.
One way is just sort of this metaphysical idea of sometimes you just have to let life and the universe or whatever just play itself out.
And by actively trying, even if you're trying to go in the direction that would naturally occur anyway, that mere act of trying kind of gums things up.
And I'm open to that potential explanation here.
But the problem with it is very difficult to analyze beyond that, right?
Like, if there is some guiding universal force that will move things in a certain direction, regardless of whether you're trying to move in that direction or not, there isn't much more to say about that.
So while I'm open to that as a possibility, there just isn't really anything further to talk about there or to analyze.
Because if that's the answer to why this sort of thing happens, then okay, it's out of my hands.
Like, whatever.
Another explanation that I've come up with is more one of, like, relativity, almost.
And I'll try to articulate this.
But if you're pushing and trying really, really hard, then you could make, it could be that no matter what the outcome is, even if the outcome is pretty good or is kind of in your favor, that it's never going to be enough, right?
Because you're pushing so hard that you want this perfect solution and you're ignoring the solutions that are maybe 80%, 70% of the way there.
And then as soon as you back off and stop pushing at all, all of a sudden, the solutions that were there all along, that maybe were only 70%, 80% as good as what you were trying to get, but are still perfectly reasonable solutions.
Maybe you just weren't ready to see them because you were pushing so hard that they looked like failures.
And then as soon as you stop pushing, they're actually a really good idea.
And my issue with this explanation is it doesn't really explain the times in which there is a hard change from one to the other, right?
Where, let's, you know, you say you're working on something and there's no funding for it.
And you're trying to get funding and you're trying to get funding and you're trying to get funding and you can't get funding.
It's more binary.
Either you have the funding or you don't.
And all of a sudden, you stop trying to get funding and all of a sudden, there's funding.
Like, it doesn't, an explanation of relativity sort of doesn't explain that.
Another possible explanation is just that you did during all of your pushing and all of your grinding and trying, you did move the needle.
It's just that you don't feel the effects until later, right?
So maybe all of that advocacy that you did to get funding really did work.
It's just that you kind of gave up on it before it came through finally.
So maybe if you had just kept pushing, you would have gotten to this solution anyway.
But since you kind of gave in, it makes it look like, oh, giving in is what finally, you know, de-gummed the works.
I don't know.
It's been a kind of a consistent thing that I've noticed.
And in some cases, it's like trying to disprove a negative because it's hard to say in other instances where you do advocate and push and try and do get to the thing.
What would have happened in those cases had you backed off and knocked it off, right?
I don't know.
You can't really game that out very easily.
Not at an anecdotal level.
But I find this whole pattern interesting.
And maybe it's just that it feels more satisfying when you're not really trying for it or something.
I don't know.
That doesn't sound...
That sounds counterintuitive as I say it out loud.
But it could be that just sometimes, especially in professional environments, if you're not trying much at all and all of a sudden things are just great and fine, that that just feels kind of good.
It's like, oh, it all worked out.
I don't know.
But it is something I'd love to hear from people on, for one thing.
So, you know, drop a line if this sounds familiar to you, please.
Like, I'd love...
If you want to come on the show and have a discussion around this, I'd love to.
The other thing I would say is, you know, you could try it, too.
I did...
Setting aside all the results piece that we've been kind of talking about here,
there is something to be said for if you are pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing,
particularly in professional life,
and you're trying and trying and you're throwing your whole heart and soul into something and it's just not shaking,
at some point, it just makes a lot of sense to just back out and be like,
you know what, I'm going to take a hands-off approach here and just let it go and see what happens.
And that's probably a switch worth flipping if for no other reason to prevent things like burnout
or at least to help not dive into burnout.
But also, particularly if you're in a decent-sized company,
doing something like this will likely...
You know, just backing off a little bit is likely a supported system by that company or institution or organization or whatever.
It's amazing how sometimes things just work their way through naturally and it seems like the effort that you're grinding into it
is in some ways just hindering the natural progression anyway.
So, I don't know.
Do you have something you're working through right now and you're just...
You're grinding so hard at it and it's just not shaking?
I don't know.
Try taking the back seat for a little bit.
See if it just kind of shakes out.
Maybe you've done that before.
I don't know.
Again, I started this by saying I don't know how relatable this is,
but it's just something that I've noticed in my life.
Professionally, sometimes personally, sometimes with all kinds of other things.
And just sort of...
I think there's a lot of truth to saying, you know,
things will work out and that sometimes it's our interventions
trying to move things in a specific direction that prevent them
from moving in that particular direction.