I’ve been thinking a lot lately about capabilities. This is partly due to my having let some habits lapse, and trying to make new ones, and struggling with both. And last week Kris Rusch did this post on courage which struck me, but not in a good way (though that isn’t on Kris). And then, this morning, my co-author and I were discussing our schedule and the next book, and our plans for that.
This week has been overwhelming for me. It’s been one of those weeks where everything seems to spiral, despite your best efforts to keep yourself healthy. I’m dissatisfied with what I’ve done, but I don’t know how I could have made any better choices with what I had at the time. And I don’t know what caused the spiral to begin with.
So I’ve been thinking. My brain works fast. And that makes me want to work fast. Well, that and the societal conditioning to gogogo. I find it hard not to rush through one thing to get to the next, or to a time when things are done and I have no obligations remaining. And even when I’ve completed something to satisfaction, there’s often another voice saying ‘now you’ve finished that and you’re on a roll, you can do this too’.
I’m sure you can see that’s a fast path to burnout. And that’s why Kris’s blog hit me. I don’t want to be That Person who makes excuses for not doing something. In my brain, if I’m capable of something, there’s no excuse for not doing it.
I was a gifted kid in school. Luckily we also had a couple of more gifted kids, so I didn’t get all the pressure — but I got enough of the ‘Don’t waste your potential’ spiels. Don’t let go of opportunities. Don’t give up. You can do anything. Never waste an opportunity. Don’t limit yourself.
Hell, I’ve said that to my friends before. Don’t limit yourself. Enlarge your future. Allow for more opportunities.
And then there’s the news. The bright sparks, the spunky start-ups. The people who develop their skills and win. The constant narrative of if you just try hard enough for long enough. Take every opportunity, just in case.
Why do so few people talk about the opportunities they declined?
When I think about the books and articles I’ve read on productivity, I don’t recall seeing a lot that talk about limitations. There have been quite a few I’ve seen on ‘saying no’. Most of those are about saying no to other people — making time, by being picky about what you spend time on. Taking back control of your time, by being choosy about giving control of it to others. But overwhelmingly, advice on production, business and success focuses on goals and achievements. Who you want your ideal self to be. What you can do. Not what you can’t.
And that’s the problem. I am capable of an awful lot. The thing is that my ideal self — the person in my head — doesn’t match up with who I actually am.
That’s not a flaw. It just is. After years of being told I can do anything I put my mind to — I can — and be anything I want to be — damn straight — and being complimented on my talents — my brain thinks I’m capable of more than my squishy human body actually is.
So when I hear a clarion call to ‘rise to this or that occasion’, I feel obligated to do so. Because I am capable of it … on a purely technical level. And I can translate that into reality. If I wanted.
If I expended the time.
If I expended the energy.
If I give up something else. This is the part my brain forgets: the something else that will suffer for it. And it won’t have been a result of anyone controlling my time but myself.
It’s been hard for me to learn that what is potential doesn’t have to be what is possible. Not because I don’t understand the concept — but because there’s a part of me, when issued a challenge, that says ‘right, fire ‘er up, let’s do it’. Maybe it’s even a kind of FOMO, that if I let this one slip through my fingers, everything will go up in smoke. I’m sure there’s a lot of people under 40 who can sympathise with that fear.
But I don’t have that time. I don’t have that brainload. Things that I can process in my head, very quickly, take a lot more time in reality. And if I invest that time, I won’t have time for something else. This is the dissonance my brain cannot reconcile; this is the bridge I struggle to build, between my ideal self and who I am right now.
Who has the time to meet every single challenge?
Not all challenges need be met. Not all opportunities need to be taken. Capability isn’t always obligation; potential is only wasted if it was wanted to begin with.
Finding, identifying, laying limitations is important, because if they don’t match the image of the person you want to be, then you’re going to fall short of the path to get there — until you can discover the place you meet yourself.
Find your limitations. It’s the only time you can then choose whether, or not, to surpass them. And if you determine that you can, it isn’t necessarily a sign that you should.
Aurichalcum Publishing 