Don’t let yourself get caught by the knowledge trap

Those who know me can tell you how picky I usually am with words. Though I don’t have problems with them specially, there’s one that I really try to avoid. But what word is it? And why do I don’t use it? Well… I’ll explain everything later. First, let’s get to the context.

A few months ago, Fernando sent us a blog post about the “Do Something Mindset”. Written by Thomas Oppong, the article caught my attention because of a specific headline that tells us that “knowledge does not necessarily drive results”.

But, what does he meant? According to Thomas, the pursuit for more facts usually is a synonym to procrastination, leading to constant delays that prevent us from making decisions and act.

“We often hide behind knowledge acquisition and use learning as an excuse to delay the more important choice of actually doing something or getting your hands dirty. You should be spending your time actively practicing.” Thomas Oppong

I would go against what I believe if I said knowledge isn’t important. However, I totally agree with Thomas when he says that to get things done you don’t need to have the whole picture. In fact, having the whole knowledge is something is impossible. All you need is the enough amount of information to get started. And that isn’t usually a lot. Everything else comes with practice. Trial and error.

Results, knowledge, and success

The word I usually avoid is “success”. I challenge you to make a quick search on Google and you’ll see the number of articles telling you how to be successful. They’re tons! But, what do they have in common? Usually, they all create a connection between knowledge, results, and success. Sometimes, they also mention careers and tell you how to get rich.

The point here is that we are all formatted since we were kids to think that knowledge is the key to being better and get results. As a natural consequence, getting better results will make us succeed and, eventually, being successful we’ll make us happier. The problem with this sequence of ideas is that, if one thing fails, we’re completely screwed.

And so we have a knowledge trap that tells us that failing is something awful and that you should act carefully, only risking when you know everything. Otherwise, you’ll never succeed, and that’s the most terrible thing that can happen to you.

Fortunately, things are changing and ways to think such as the “Do Something Mindset” are growing. Things don’t have to be perfect. They never are. All we can do is practice and practice again. Eventually, we’ll succeed, but that will be a consequence and not a goal.

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