PEr Chronicles: Dealing with limited resources

The heir & the spare. A resentment of being “the spare” while his older brother is “the heir” to the throne boiled over in a royal rift between Prince Harry and Prince William.

Never focus on getting dealt a better hand. ?I know I’m happier wanting less than getting more.

Some folks aren’t happy because they don’t have what they want, or they aren’t where they wish to be. Maybe they’re comparing themselves to others, or even a former version of themselves.

Unhappiness is simple. Most of us have wanted something for a long time, and once receiving it, realise it wasn’t all that, and what we had propped up in our mind was an inflated sense of euphoria or contentment.

Most of the improvements I’ve made in my life this past year came from tweaking the way I saw the things that were around me. I stopped seeing my mistakes as failures but rather as valuable (or expensive) lessons. Roadblocks became speed bumps and hurdles. Reasons to quit became reasons to adapt (or motivation to smash through).

Let’s not get it twisted – I’m not a Zen Buddha baby. I do, however, only give myself about 10 minutes to be a Sad Panda before I move forward.

Expectations are a bigger enemy to our happiness than our circumstances. The next time you’re having a Sad Panda moment, ask yourself about the picture in your head and the picture in front of you. Try to mold both ends to bring them together. It works better than alcohol – sometimes, that is.

Dealing with limited resources – and getting things done anyway – is a sign of accountability. Some people confuse the terms responsibility and accountability. Responsibility is what I call “pointing the finger”, that is, finding the cause when something goes wrong; it’s what most organizations do. It’s identifying who made the mistake and blaming that person or people. Accountability is not about who is responsible and who is not. It’s about “where the buck stops.”

Leaders who pass the buck or blame their staff for being inadequate are the problem, not the solution. It doesn’t change the situation. Once you accept the cold hard facts of the situation and stop wishing and wanting, you can start to deal with the problem at hand. Put your energy into the solution.

The truth is that even a handful of individuals can light a spark that galvanizes masses, and small groups of individuals can bring about profound change. It’s happened many times before, and it’s usually fueled by the power of caring, the same power that can brief the conditioning of psychological helplessness. Soccer has the most astonishing story of how an unglamorous team, which has never won the title in its 132-year history, did it. At the start of the season, bookmakers had Leicester City at an incredible 5,000-1 to win the Premier League – greater than the odds on Kim Kardashian becoming the next US president. They do not have the best players or the biggest budgets. Their modestly assembled team comprised of players who have all come from humble beginnings. It’s possible to win with underdogs.

When you’re accountable, you accept your job in a holistic manner. You don’t waste time or energy thinking about how you have been dealt a bad hand. You don’t sit around feeling sorry for yourself. You take an offensive and “thrive in adversity.”

You got what you got. Now do something with it!