One of my favorite quotes is by Epictetus, who said: “First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.” Like the Golden Rule, it’s so simple and yet so hard to live up to.
First say to yourself what you would be
The most precious asset anyone has is their personal identity–who they are and how they view themselves. We hold it dear because it’s hard-earned, and it’s uniquely our own.
But our personal identity is not always enough. We all are capable of more than what we currently are. Some people are OK with that fact, and are perfectly comfortable with who they are and where they are in their lives. More power to them. But speaking for myself (and I suspect many others, such as the type of people like yourself who read these posts), I am bothered by the fact that I’m not living up to my full potential.
But it’s important to frame that fact in the right spirit. The wrong spirit is to feel like failures or losers because we’re not doing all that we are capable of. The right spirit is to have a sense of healthy dissatisfaction, where we’re OK with who and what we are, but excited for the possibilities of becoming even better. I’d rather view the quest for personal growth as my own personal Everest: I attempt the climb because it’s there, and I can’t wait to see what the view looks like from a little higher up, and then a little higher after that.
This sentiment presupposes that we realize that our identity is not fixed in place. We’re not prisoners of our genetics or our past experiences. It is malleable and capable of intelligent design as well as evolution. The old phrase “today is the first day of the rest of your life”, is trite, but like all trite sayings it contains an important truth. You can change if you want to.
To put the phrase in practical terms, I can think of no better guide than James Clear, who has written about this in his book Atomic Habits. Clear tells us that the most important way to change your habits is to use an identity approach. Instead of setting a goal and then trying to instill the behaviors that will help you reach it, start by seeing yourself as the type of person who does those things. For example, instead of telling yourself, “I want to lose weight,” say something like “I am a healthy eater.”
Our sense of self drives our behavior. Clear says, “Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last.”[1] That’s why a lot of the well-meaning advice to set goals is not enough. We have to believe that we are the type of person who is capable of the behavior, and indeed incapable of not behaving in a certain way. Which brings us to the behaviors that translate that ideal into reality…
And then do what you have to do
This is the hard part. It’s easy to imagine a better version of ourselves; hard to do the things we must do. There are two parts to this. First, we must figure out what we must do. That’s where knowledge, strategy and planning come in. Do your research, set goals, figure out a strategy for advancing toward those goals, and then write down a plan.
The second part is to simply do it, even when you don’t feel like it—maybe especially when you don’t feel like it.[2] No time is ever wasted if you fill it with action that moves you closer to your ideal self; nothing is a greater waste of time than imagining a better self that you have no intention of pursuing. And it’s not just about drudgery. I also believe it’s impossible to be unhappy as long as you’re taking meaningful action toward a worthwhile future.
The second point is where most of us fall short. I’ve had so many people tell me they want to write a book. When I ask them how many pages they’ve written, I can’t remember one person naming a number greater than zero.
But I certainly can’t claim to be a paragon of action when it comes to consistently pursuing a better self. I don’t stick with things as long or as diligently as I should sometimes, but when I fall short, identity-based motivation helps. For example, I’m struggling with this article a bit right now. It’s mid-morning and I feel like taking a break. The excuses come easily to mind, and then I check myself by asking, “what would a real writer do in this situation?”
Clear makes the point eloquently: “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”[3] That means that every action you take that accords with your sense of the ideal self, strengthens your belief that you can get there; and so you’re more likely to act, and it creates a virtuous circle of consistent personal growth.
So, how did you vote today?
[1] James Clear, Atomic Habits, p. 44.
[2] See my previous post: Professionals Don’t Need Motivation
[3] p. 51.
Amateurs love motivation, that spark of enthusiasm and excitement that moves them to take on a difficult but worthwhile task. They love it so much that they quickly become addicted to it, searching for it constantly in books, videos, speeches; they plaster motivational quotes anywhere in their field of vision, always striving to keep their tank topped up with fresh reasons to work hard and chase their goals.
There’s nothing wrong with a little motivational boost now and then—except that sometimes, despite their best efforts, the motivation is just not there. What do they do then?
Professionals also like motivation, but they treat it as the fickle friend it is, who is welcome when it shows up, but who’s not going to interfere with their plans if it does not.
Professionals show up even when they’re not motivated. Professionals get started when they’re not motivated. Professionals do the work and stick with it even when they don’t quite feel like it. Professionals know that you don’t always need to be motivated to get started—sometimes it works in reverse. You get started on a challenging and worthwhile task, and the motivation kicks in as you immerse yourself in it.
Professionals don’t need the little blue pill of motivation to get them started, because they have more reliable companions, who can always be counted on to be there when they need them. These reliable companions don’t depend on their state of mind at the moment; they’re ingrained into the professional’s character and value system.
These companions are professional identity, purpose, and habit.
As I’ve written before, one of the most powerful influences on behavior is identity: the desire to live up to an ideal vision of who you are. A clear purpose, in which you know you are contributing to something meaningful, can fuel your determination to continue when things get tough. Finally, developing healthy habits can make even difficult things automatic.
You can get motivated quickly by watching a 17-minute TED talk or hanging a poster on your wall, but the rush usually lasts about as long as it took to acquire. Identity, purpose and habits take much longer to acquire, but they can last a lifetime—and they always show up when you need them most.
You may hate the idea of speaking in front of groups, and there’s nothing wrong with that. A lot of people feel the same way. I used to feel the same way early in my career. But I’m going to explain why you should develop at least some reasonable proficiency in public speaking, even if your work does not require it.
The ability to speak in front of large groups of people is one of the most important skills you can develop to propel your career, even if you don’t do it regularly as part of your job description. That’s because it increases your influence, makes you a better thinker, boosts personal confidence, and makes you a better communicator in other modes as well.
Influence
Public speaking has immediate practical benefits. It gives you more exposure both inside and outside your organization, and you’ll be seen as more of a leader by those who count.
As a knowledge worker, your value is directly dependent on your ability to effectively transfer that knowledge effectively to the relevant stakeholders. Public speaking allows you to transfer that knowledge wholesale to a much wider audience. If you think of yourself and your personal brand as a startup, public speaking is the best way to make your personal influence scalable.
Maybe you’re not that interested in increasing your personal influence for selfish reasons, and that’s very noble of you. But having greater influence helps to advance causes or ideas that you care about. And if you learn the art of communicating your ideas in a way that aligns with the way others think and what they need, others will care about them as well.
Thinking
Beyond practical reasons, public speaking has intrinsic benefits that carry over to other aspects of your work and life. It’s no accident that rhetoric was at the center of education for so many centuries. Very smart people for over two thousand years have known that it is the incubator of leadership skills, because it teaches one to think and to communicate ideas.
When you craft and deliver a speech, you get two valuable forms of feedback that improve your thinking. The first is self-generated, which comes when you prepare. Frequently, we don’t really know if we understand an idea until we try to put it into words that others will understand. It’s called the illusion of understanding; I frequently suffer from it myself. I might read an article that makes perfect sense in my head, but when I try to articulate it out loud or on paper, I realize how shallow and patchy my understanding truly is.
And, knowing others are going to listen critically forces you to find objective support for your ideas, which strengthens your grasp of topics even if you already know them fairly well. Every single time I prepare a presentation, I learn more about the topic than I knew going in.
Second, if your topic is engaging enough to spark questions and discussion, it’s the purest way to evolve and improve your thinking through competition with other sharp minds. In fact, public speaking is a form of deliberate practice, in which you push your communication to the limits of your abilities and then get immediate feedback on your performance.
Confidence
Public speaking is like New York: if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. When you learn that you can enter a room full of complete and potentially hostile strangers, and win them over to your way of thinking, no job interview or one on one meeting need ever intimidate you again. And, because public speaking is one of—if not the greatest—fears that people have, simply overcoming your pre-speech jitters is great training for so many other challenges in life.
Communicating and Connecting
Finally, public speaking makes you a better and more influential speaker in one on one communication, because you learn to express your thoughts in a listener-friendly fashion that captures their interest and addresses their interests. It makes you a better writer, for the same reason.
It teaches you to think and adapt on your feet, which can make you a better interviewee, a more effective salesperson, and a more persuasive contributor to meetings.
In my own career, I was lucky enough to learn how incredibly useful public speaking can be while I was still in my early 20s, thanks to a friend who shamed me into attending my first Toastmasters meeting. I went with great trepidation, but I found the environment to be so relaxed and supportive that within two or three meetings I had totally changed my attitude and gotten over my fear. Within a few months, the bank where I worked took notice of my abilities, and increasingly had me speak at various functions. In a way, it’s no exaggeration to say that learning to speak in public changed my life.
So, if you have been holding back, I urge you to take that first step. Take a class, hire a coach, join Toastmasters, commit to speak somewhere, so that you don’t have a choice, and just do it. You will be glad you did.
I’ve just had a humbling realization. I re-read some of my old posts on personal productivity, and I was struck by two things. First, without false modesty I have to say there is a lot of wisdom in the ideas I’ve written about (mostly because I’ve learned them from others). Second, imagine how much better off I would be today if I had actually stuck to those ideas after I wrote about them!
For example, one article was entitled, Five Powerful Principles for Reducing Waste in Personal Work, and it described several excellent tactics to organize work, increase focus, and reduce wasted effort. It was part of a series I wrote a few years ago about applying lean principles to personal work, and it did make a significant difference in my productivity at the time. But for some reason I drifted away from those disciplines over time.
It’s a great example of the entropy that goes on in our minds. Any structure that you build is going to deteriorate over time, unless you occasionally maintain, repair or refresh it. This goes for mental structures just as much as for physical ones. It’s not simply forgetting; as I read some of these articles, I easily recalled the facts and concepts; the raw materials are still there, but like ancient stone columns lying half-buried in the dirt, they no longer function as originally intended.
Fortunately, there’s good news. Unlike a physical structure, a mental structure can easily be re-built and even improved if you so desire. You just need to go back and relearn what you learned and then discarded.
How much useful information have you learned that you have buried deep in your mind? What have you learned and forgotten that you would like to re-learn? How much more productive or successful would you be today, if you had sustained your original enthusiasm for something long enough to turn it into a solid habit?
I believe in lifelong learning just as much as anyone else, but there’s always the risk that, in chasing after new lessons, you may forget some of the old.
So, I challenge you to the same challenge I’ve given myself: choose a book you read once that made a big impression on you, and go back and re-learn its lessons. You may be surprised to learn what you once knew.
