Focus For Dummies
Work out what’s important before it’s too late
I’ve been around awhile. Over 28 years in the workforce to be exact and when I reflect on this journey I realise we all want something we don’t have.
When I was a 22 year, fresh-outta-college graduate, I wanted experience. I wanted to look mature. I wanted those visual credibility cues. I wanted to be able to contribute wisely to conversations,
to be taken seriously.
I am now a 50 year old established manager. I now want to be younger, I want the energy and enthusiasm I once had. I’d like to think I still have plenty of it, but it’s not at the same level that it once was.
Or maybe I am past the point of trying to prove something to someone. I am completely comfortable with who I am and where I stand.
I love my job, but I realise (for me) that my job no longer defines who I am.
20 years ago it did. My qualification implied I was educated, clever and knew how to work hard. My job title implied I was a mover and shaker, a leader.
I would proudly tell people what I did at a barbecue knowing they would make their own judgements about me just by describing my job.
I now realise that all of that means shit.
What I do is not important. Who I am is.
And there lies the emerging disconnect I now have with work and the rest of my life.
My work is something I do to keep me mentally challenged, to make ends meet and to hopefully make a positive impact in the world I have an influence over. But I now realise there is so much more out there that can also help me achieve those things.
My work is no longer my primary provider for mental nourishment.
As you get older many of you will come to the same realisation because ageing makes you critically reassess what is truly important.
Contrary to popular belief, people of my demographic (and you will there one day so keep reading!) are not “over the hill”, instead we have reached the top of the hill and are now surveying the view on both sides.
And as we do we begin to think about what we have done with the years behind us, and importantly, how best to use the remaining years ahead of us.
I have now entered the decade where my own mortality becomes more of a reality for many of us.
Whilst I personally expect to be around for at least another 3 decades, I do ask myself the following;
Have I done enough with those closest to me to one day die with a smile on my face? And more importantly, a smile on their face as they reflect fondly about the time they spent with me?
As you get older you realise there are many things you can never regain. Time being the most obvious and health being another.
You only realise how precious something is when it is taken from you.
Everything is a little slower, harder and more painful to do. Tying up my shoelaces requires a very specific mental thought:
Can I reach my foot without excessively straining my hamstrings or lower back?
This is a ridiculous thought to have, but a reality of owning an ageing body.
And in the workplace, the tying of the shoelaces is substituted by the short-term deadline or the meeting followed by well documented and timely minutes.
These were once routine workplace actions. Now they come with some mental and physical baggage.
This deadline will mean me staying back late this week, probably missing my gym workouts, and I’ll have to get the assistant coach to run my daughters basketball practice.
Another meeting, followed by another solid hour to produce minutes that I’m not convinced anyone reads but serve as an arse-covering mechanism should they one day be needed.
Why can’t people just leave the meeting and be fully accountable for their actions without someone having to hold them accountable on a piece of paper?
We are all professional, right?
This is the sad reality of age and experience. We become more cynical of the mundane, the repetitive or the rediculous.
We question the status quo not because of youthful exuberance and/or naivety, but because we understand what really matters versus what is done for optics.
We have learnt to focus on what really matters.
So what’s the point here?
Don’t wait until you hit your next milestone in life to evaluate what’s truly important to you.
Do it now and then make the changes necessary to align your actions to your goals.
