The Importance of Pace

 

In The Simpson's episode Homer's Enemy,  Frank Grimes is a unlucky man who's worked hard his life but failed to reap any of the benefit.  When confronted with the inequity of his circumstances compared to Homer's he breaks down into a self destructive fit of jealousy that eventually ends his life prematurely.

 

The episode is a 1990s comedic expression of the general observation that life is not fair.  Several decades later, as income inequality has increased it's become a popular talking point that, "Hard work alone doesn't make you successful."  In Gen A slang a, "Try Hard" is someone like Frank Grimes who does himself discredit by giving it too much effort.

For us conscientious types, this is not only counter intuitive but also elicits an emotional reaction.  Folk heroes like Rocky show us that while God may not have blessed us with any particularly useful talent, we can make up for it for it with heart.  Hercules taught us that even with God given talent, there's still value in the striving.  When reality turns that on its head and actively punishes our hard work, it's a slap in the face of our sense of justice.

However, what if there's something we're doing that's causing this phenomenon?  If so, it'd mean that it's in fact our own actions that are directly making the world less equitable. 

When Less is More

Readiness

First there's the obvious point that stretching yourself too thin leaves nothing to spare for surprises.  If you're constantly giving 110%, there's simply nothing there when you're called up to go further. Maintaining a general excretion level of 80% mental, emotional, and physical stress is a good goal.  This gives you enough to drive for results while maintaining readiness for emergencies.

Sprezzatura

Next, the need to demonstrate competence beyond just your sphere of expertise.  Particularly people in positions of authority are managing a wide area of responsibilities each with its own urgency and complexity.  They rarely have the time to get into the details.  They must operate on trust.  They want to know you can be relied upon to get the job done.  Since they can't be an expert in every field, they rely on confidence as a proxy to competence.  Interestingly, evolution appears to have built the same mechanism into the mating process.  Women look for confidence in their mate to help them decide if he's capable of the responsibility of caring for a family.

No matter how competent you may be, if you're constantly stretched to your limits it shows.  You may be critically important to your organization but if you're stressed, you appear less reliable than you actually are.  The solution here is not to fake confidence.  That's known as the "con (confidence) game" and is deceitful.  It might help you in the short run, but you'll eventually be exposed as not only unreliable but also dishonest.  Instead, you'll help yourself simply by slowing down.  Even if serious problems arise as a result, you'll be more likely to be heard and get the resources you need to actually fix them long term.

The Napolean Technique

It's said that when faced with non-critical issues, Napolean would postpone addressing them.  It'd often turn out that they'd resolve themselves.  This is a counter-intuitive approach but is powerful and absolutely works.  It's often because what may be non-critical for you, is important to someone.  The delay encourages them to take the initiative to get it done.  Many times the only reason the issue was raised to you in the first place was to give them permission to do just that.

Cultivate Serendipity

Richard Wiseman's book, "The Luck Factor" is a great study of controllable factors often mistaken for luck.  The book is full of great advice.  One of the takeaways that's helped me is to plan ahead and maintain a list of short and long term goals, both trivial and grand.  If you stay relaxed, open minded, and observant you'll be surprised how often an opportunity presents itself.

A trivial example is keeping a list of chores.  If you're responsible and goal oriented, you may be tempted to rush into each task headlong to get them done.  Taking this approach though necessarily means that the effort you exert will be the sum of the individual effort required for each task.  If you wait for the right moment though you may get "7 in one blow."

For example, my house had no rain gutters.  I live in Southern California and it seldom rains so this wasn't a huge problem.  However, when it did rain sometimes my garage would flood.  I hired a handyman to help me finish another project and mentioned the rain gutters to him.  He offered to fix them for a much better rate than I'd been quoted online.  I agreed and in the same day got two projects finished at high quality for a great price.  If I'd rushed in with the first quote, I'd have paid more, spent more time, and probably gotten a lower quality result.