What Actually is Doing What you Gotta do?
You gotta do what you gotta do! Right?
It's a great phrase that can fire you up, ready to take on the world and beat down any obstacle in your way.
But it raises a question...
What is it I gotta do?
? Work late, no sleep
? Work early, no sleep
? Work hard, no play
? Work smart, then work harder smarter
That sounds about right, if I am listening to the internet at least. YouTube, Medium and the rest are replete with content telling us we need to do more.
And more of what, exactly?
Well, not self-analysis it seems. There's no actually taking stock of yourself and identifying the gaps where you could improve.
Just keep watching and reading.
That is, keep watching and reading by yourself. Keep your nose to the grind stone by yourself. Make sure that you win by yourself.
They have all of the answers for your problems in the the form of a time-boxing system built on Notion that you can update anywhere.
But they never even ask the most important question.
What is it I'm missing?
I didn't want to admit this.
No one is an island, and no island filled with hacks, books and systems can ever replace real relationships with real people.
And it's not about productivity.
Relationships can and will help with career advancement, financial success and that general getting ahead in life.
But they are so much more that that.
Just getting out there and talking to people, engaging in conversation and not being alone can and will do so much for you.
Right now, I have the opportunity to talk to;
? A comdey writer preparing scripts for an upcoming show
? Two astrophyisits with interesting ideas
? A clinical linguist who works with aphasia patients
? And a number of others
I can do this because I broke out of the prision that is being alone and started coming to a writing group every Saturday morning (where I am writing this).
And, it's great.
I set some time aside to get my head down and write, and I get to meet interesting people with interesting lives and and get to know them
It took me a while to get here
领英推荐
I've spent a lot of time alone
Now, I enjoy being with other people. I love to talk and listen, learn and tangle, chinwag and chortle, relate and realise.
But for a longtime, I didn't.
For a longtime, I told myself three things;
1. I was that guy who didn't need anyone
2. Needing human connection meant I was lacking something in myself
3. In the end, people would always let me down, so why bother to build relationships
Honestly, these were lies.
Lies that were there to cover up a truth that I just didn't want to admit to myself. A truth that would appear to me at 3am, alone and vunerable.
The truth that I was scared.
I was scared that in opening myself up to other people, in even the smallest of ways, would result in some catastrophe of rejection and mockery.
I'm not talking to bearing my soul to strangers here.
I'm talking about very simple, everyday things, like;
? Sharing an opinion on that show everyone is watching
? Talking about that recent 10k that I was proud of doing
? General chit-chat without assuming the worst
To be completly honest, I was lonely.
I was compensating by engaging with the self-improvement 'community' that exists online, in the productivity videos, assured that these were the answer to how I felt.
I finally did what I gotta do
I simply went to where other people were.
Improv comey classes, public speaking sessions, writing groups. All of these places gave me a chance to break the lie that had ruled my life.
And it worked.
Now, I'm out and about. I've have conversations, made friends, run an improv session and coached a business leader in public speaking.
And it started with admiting the truth.
The truth that I couldn't do it all by myself, that I needed real human interactions, that other people were not the problem.
Key Takeaways
? Content creators don't know what you've got to do, only you can answer that question. But you've got to ask it honestly.
? All of the content about self-improvement cannot replace genuine human interaction. And that's something that we all need, even if we don't admit it.
? Only by getting out into the world and taking action, however small, can we actually change our lives and how we feel about ourselves
If you're in Manchester then checkout my free confidence building workshop on Saturday 27th July at 10am;