I read (well listened to) "The Dip" recently, a book by Seth Godin. It's sinking in more and more every day. It's an interesting way to view an element of my life I've been uncomfortable with for some time. Read More...
I got "The Dip" from audible recently. It's Seth Godin's most recent book and focuses on what seperates "The Best" from "The Rest". Or put another way, it's "A little book about quitting".
The quitting side was a revelation to me. I've always been what I'd call a hoarder. I keep loads of bits and bobs, knowing that "one day" I'll get round to.... whatever. The fact is that the vast majority of these things I never get round to doing. The stuff I accumulate to do with them just soaks up space in my life. Every time I come across this stuff I either feel guilty that I'm not doing that stuff, or get super inspired and lose interest in the 'current' and switch.
I enjoy being interested and inspired by a very broad range of things, but at the same time I find it very frustrating that I can't progress all of them. The reality is that it's not healthy for me. I'm setting myself up to fail.
The way I read "The Dip", Seth's talking about focus, commitment, and seeing things through. Picking what you're going to succeed at, and "Quitting" the other stuff. The last part - the Quitting, is what gives you the space and opportunity in your life to properly commit to succeeding at the other stuff.
I'm really going to focus on this approach. There's so many things I've got "on the back burner" at the moment, including a bunch of electronics projects, diy home projects, more business ideas than you can shake a stick at, learning languages, creating audio content and video content (podcasts), some photography projects, some projects for the kids (a comic, building kites, teaching them to ride bikes, photography) etc etc. Some of these are really important and I want to do them. Some of the stuff I am / have been doing isn't so important (in the scheme of things) and I shouldn't be doing them...
So this week I'm going to pick my fights. Decide *THE* thing's I'm going to see through to a conclusion, and conciously QUIT everything else. So expect more posts on this theme.
It's scary, but exciting at the same time. I find it very difficult to to let some of these things go - but at the same time I can already feel a weight lifting.
Here are some links:
Seth's blog about the book:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/the_dip/
Seth's Squidoo page about the book:
http://www.squidoo.com/thedipbook