This may not seem life-changing or earth-shattering on the surface, but rare is the deeply moving things in life.
They are slow, deep, and seep into our minds at the foundation.
Initially, they may nag us at first, ideas or concepts that don't exactly fit our current world view. They pop up in your head, you shove them down, but they find their way back.
They sting our brain and create a sort of ‘itchy’ response. We revisit the thought, idea, or concept like a bug bite that we itch and goes away. Naggingly the itch soon returns again, and again, and again until we are bearing down with all of our weight ravenously onto it trying it getting a little bit of relief.
Now how does this relate to the ultimate life hack? well now that I’ve got your skin crawling with this slightly disturbing analogy, I wanted to the stage for an idea or concept that is a small bug bite at first, but hopefully, you will find your self trying to itch it all day every day.
The idea is to keep your world small.
Another way to say it is, Control your Controlables. not very sexy right? yes, I know, I had the same reaction, but just wait, like a good hot sauce, this heat builds after a few bites.
The essence here is that you cant spend your time and energy worrying about stuff you cannot control. I realize this might come off as preachy or easier said than done, I know.
In times like these, the economy, a pandemic, how much toilet paper other people are buying. You can’t control those things and the more you get sucked into worrying about it, the further you get away from the safety and security of the things you can control.
Because while you’re sucked into the news or social media, that's time you could have spent reading up and becoming an expert on a hobby or skill that could open up new doors for you mentally, emotionally, creatively, socially, etc. It could be being more active, stretching or taking care of your body through yoga or mediation or exercise. It could be fostering a deeper connection with friends or family that you would otherwise have not had with each other.
I won’t sit here and try and take credit for this, I heard a Navy SEAL mention this philosophy about how he got through his grueling and torturous training.
He talked about when they were near hypothermic from swimming in the ocean holding nearly 80lbs above their head running 4mi in the sand while only have gotten 2hrs of sleep (and not all at once mind you) in 2 days and still knowing you have another 5 days of this ahead of you. that is enough to make you want to quit. By focusing on his next meal, just making it to that next milestone and focusing all his energy on getting to the next meal, got him through.
The lesson here is that by focusing on the small milestones and bread crumbs right in front of you will help you feel accomplished and in control.
Breaking down daunting tasks into small bite-sized or even smaller into bread crumbs. Generally speaking, we are used to immediate gratification and are wildly impatient, so when things are hard or we are not good at them instantly, we quit.
I’ll give you two quick examples:
First, Hitting a home run in a professional baseball game. If I told you that to become a home run hitting baseball player at the professional level, that all you needed to do was swinging the bat for 10min a day every day for a week. What would you say? How many bread crumbs are in that action?
I’ll show you. It simply starts with picking up a bat (bread crumb #1) and swinging it (bread crumb #2). Those are two small actions that are incredibly meaningful. Then by swinging the bat for 10min a day (bread crumb #3) every day (bread crumb #4) for a week (bread crumb #5), you’ve accomplished a lot.
That's accomplishing 5 things you otherwise wouldn't have even thought about because you were too focused on hitting a ball out of the park and running around the bases with fans screaming. If you can swing a bat for a week, you can swing it for a month, if you can swing it for a month you can practice hitting a ball off a tee, then from a slow pitch, then from a fast pitch. You’re breaking down a seemingly impossible task into small pieces that are achievable, but it takes focus and patients. Those bread crumbs are the key.
If you want to become a NASA engineer. Well to do that, you might think you need to learn all about astrophysics and gravity and laws of thermodynamics, but it starts with reading a page in a book. reading one page, then two. then five. then one chapter. then two. Book after book, page after page. the tasks has been broken down into the smallest possible chunks for you to tackle. If you can get through one page, you can make it to the next. If you made it to that one, just getting through this page can get you to the next chapter.
The whole of human history builds on itself and we all are standing on the shoulders of those who came before us. We are not reinventing or rediscovering the laws of physics, the electromagnetic spectrum and quantum mechanics to build a website or app. All of those have been done for us, but we dont see it that way.
If you want to get married or build a business. The principles apply everywhere.
So next time you’re overwhelmed, frustrated, or don't know where to start. Find a breadcrumb and focus on it. The next step will become apparent even if you cant see it.
Alex Kaye is a veteran revenue operations expert with more than a decade of experience. Alex has helped a dozen companies, and counting, achieve sustainable growth by crafting winning go-to-market strategies, design scalable business processes, and provide data insights to guide strategic decision making at each step along the way. After helping companies raise more than $40M in venture funding, navigating 2 acquisitions, and an IPO, Alex is now sharing his expertise by coaching founders and sales leaders through the unique challenges of success at scale.
