Wednesday, June 06, 2007

On Underperforming

Why is it that it's so easy to get pissed off at yourself or your sports team when it under performs, but it doesn't bother you to do under perform in other areas of your life?

A sporting event has a defined ending point, a clear victory condition, and a whole lotta rules. Life has none of these, so it's easy to trick yourself into pushing things back, potting things off, and changing the "rules" in your head to accommodate slacking off, changing your mind, and failure.

This is why it's so important to set concrete goals with timelines that you'll stick to. Sure, I'm not great at it yet either, but it been slowly sinking in for a while now. I know myself well enough to know that I trick myself into odd rationalizations that allow me to put things off almost indefinitely.

I'm excited that my new job will pretty much force me to keep track of everything, and I'll be held accountable when things get done. Hopefully, the habits I'm forced into will become second nature long after I've left them.

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