Never have just one thing...
Never have one thing that defines you. If you have only one thing then this thing may be taken away from you, once it is taken away from you what do you have to fall back on? Who only wants to be defined by one thing anyway? I guess it’s kind of cool to say “I’m Lebron James the NBA player” and he definitely hasn’t siloed himself in anyway as he is also a philanthropist, investor, actor, somewhat average rapper. He and others have done this because they are very aware anything can be be taken away from them at any point.
So most commonly what are we defined by? For most of us it is a our job or relationships that we let define us. 'I'm a salesperson at…', 'mother of…' 'girlfriend to…' etc. Now have a think about what that one thing might be for you. The best way to do this is to imagine someone asking you the question “tell me about yourself? Or what do you do? The first tangible thing you think of is how you define yourself. Now imagine that you can’t give the same answer twice. So if your first response was 'accountant' what would you say If you weren’t allowed to say this? If nothing springs to mind then you probably need another 'thing'. If your answer is something like ‘A father of two, owner of a online business and football enthusiast then you’ve got more than one thing, well done! This question can show if you have siloed yourself or not.
It is so easy to get caught up in one thing especially if it is work or family, but it can also lead to some problems....
1) What if it was taken away from you?
I already touched on this. And you see it with sport stars all the time, when they have a promising career, suffer an injury and can’t play again and then have nothing to fall back on. Having something else, means that if you lose that one thing you still have one or two or three things to continue to move forward with. Even if the number one thing is your job, at least you still have your family or your training to keep you occupied and progressing while you look for another job. If all you’re doing between jobs is looking for a new job and thinking about the job you lost then that is not a healthy place to be in.
2) The 7 year itch
You hear this all the time with careers, at 7 years people begin to get a bit bored and a bit edgy and start yearning for new opportunities, but I think these people might be too invested in their work. If they diversified their life a bit more and had more than one thing, then this 7 year itch may not exist as you have other goals in place that distract you from the potential monotony or day to day of your current job and you are therefore driven and inspired in other ways beyond just your career.
3) I’m 97 now…
I’ve touched on this concept before, the number one issue with only having one thing, or one goal is that you miss out on the discovery, this monotony means that life will race you by and you will be 97 looking back asking yourself ‘Where did my life go?’, 'Did I achieve everything I wanted?" variety is key. Stay focused but stay varied.
How do you create more things?
Create tiers. Clear ladders of goals that allow you to prioritise the top tier of that ladder. It is good to have a number one goal of getting that promotion, of running that marathon, but within this ladder create clearly defined tiers so that if your focus on one activity has to decrease for any reason you have one just sitting right below to to take its place, even if only for a short time.
Here is mine below.
Now if I lose my job I’m sure as hell going to need to find a new one, but I have distinct goals that form part of every tier, and losing my job would provide a great opportunity to fast track these goals. I also have savings that would stop any monetary panic… I should also be clear that these aren’t just hobbies, while most of these are fun to me, because I have very defined goals sitting behind them, this means that they fit on this ladder. Otherwise we could just be adding things we like... like movies, driving and eating, which is not the goal of this exercise because hobbies while fun don't provide us with true value.
The Point:
So have a crack at creating your own ladder, I would aim for at least two or three tiers to start with. So if one or more of these falls over, you’ve got plenty more to keep you driven and keep you moving forward. The advantage of having these structured in this way is you won’t suffer the frustration of having only one thing and you wont suffer the anxiety of having too many things as you will have these all structured in such a way that it is clear which goal is most important to you.