Nothing in the tank

Yesterday morning I had a client session and we were talking about effort put into work and he suggested that taking the middle path through life is the best option. This of course depends on what one wants from life but the problem with the middle path in my thinking is that there are too many questions left but if all effort is put in, one knows that they have done their best. This means that when there is failure concrete paths are possible instead of, try harder next time as trying harder is not an option. skill development is though.

We of course have the tendency not to put effort into the things that we don't enjoy or want to do but with so many of things part of most of our lives, if we get into the habit of performing at an average level, it is highly likely that we are not capable of performing at our best in the things we want to do either. Habits set a baseline and if we train at a low level, our peak potential is reduced when we need it.

For example:

1. Training > 2. Performing at 50% > 3. Training > 4. Next performance.

Performing at 50% means that there is a question of, "with my current skills, if I had tried harder I could have..." which means that the following training session doesn't necessarily target skills that could be lacking as the 'lacking' part is an unknown.

1. Training > 2. Performing at 100% > 3. Corrective training > 4. Next performance.

This process takes out the question of 'trying harder' and instead leaves the result that skills weren't good enough on the day and this provides much more guidance for what can be worked on before the next performance.

When we get into the pattern of limiting ourselves in one area not cared for, we do not necessarily recognize that in doing so, we are limiting ourselves in other areas that we might care a great deal about. We might see it as 'saving our energy' for what we do enjoy but what generally seems to happen is it lowers our capacity for what we do enjoy so even when we put our all in, it is less all than it could have been.

This is also an uncomfortable issue when comparing performance between people as while two individuals could put there all into something, the one with the higher skill capacity is going to outperform the other. Much like going to the gym, the ones who train well increase their strength while those that take a middle route might maintain their strength. While competition between people might be interesting to some, it doesn't interest me so much.

What does interest me is being able to perform at my best which is of course followed by the caveat, under circumstances. I definitely don't have an optimized environment to perform at my full potential but I try to manage it so that I can perform at the best I can considering the conditions. Knowing what one can do considering conditions is something not many people really spend much time thinking about.

I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs two hundred fifteen pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab of the gray truck outside, and at this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Now why would I know that? How can I know that and not know who I am? -Jason Bourne

Can we ever really know who we are without knowing what we are capable of and can we know what we are capable off if we take the middle path through life? This is pretty important when it comes to the things we enjoy and consider meaningful for our lives as if we don't really spend time understanding and developing ourselves for our best, can we be fulfilled or will there always be the question of, if I had tried harder, maybe.. ?

While habits created can make our lives more efficient in some ways, it can also limit our experience in others and while we work efficiently, we miss the feedback that only full effort can bring, absolute failure. Absolute failure doesn't mean that it will always be a failure of course, it just means that in that moment, we can truly know that our best wasn't good enough and then, we can identify where to improve ourselves for the next attempt.

This all comes down to personal framing of life of course and everyone has their own life to live but in my opinion, we could likely each do a hell of a lot better than we currently are but instead of developing for our purpose, we avoid growth in favor of some lesser goals, like being entertained.

I can't say what a good life lived is, that is for each of us to work out for ourselves.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]