What are You Hunting?

I recently heard a great quote, "If you're a lion, are you hunting field mice, or antelopes?" The purpose behind the quote is that if you are hunting field mice, you might get an easy win. Something to keep you going, something to stop you from starving. While the antelope will allow you to thrive. They are more challenging to catch, but the reward is much bigger.

This had me thinking about what my own antelopes and field mice are. What sort of activities am I doing that just get me by, and what am I doing that is going to make me the person that I want to be? These are the types of questions that I think are so important to continue asking ourselves in work and personal life. Making sure that I am getting by may help me now though it will surely lead to greater displeasure in the future.

I struggle with the need to be active. If I don't do anything productive, I start to feel incredibly guilty. So I often fill my time with activities that, while are helpful, are not pushing me towards my top objectives. Getting the easy wins keeps me feeling good like an addict in a sense that I have accomplished something. Even if it's not terribly important. I am not saying that we shouldn't shoot for small wins in life, but that we need to be careful that life isn't only filled up with small wins.

Going after the antelopes is not about taking gambles and risks. The point is to focus on what are the big goals. Stop spending time on the field mice that are not going to get you to where you want to be. These bigger kinds of goals will always take more patience than the easy ones. Though they will be more rewarding in the end. As technology infuses us with more and more instant gratification, it becomes increasingly important to learn the work and feeling that goes into and comes from long term goals.

So this leads back to the question, are you hunting mice, or antelopes?