The change process
January 22, 2012
When you think of the word “innovation”, what comes to your mind? The light bulb? The computer, or hell, mobile device possibly, that you’re using to read this? Maybe an i/Pod/Phone/Pad/next-P-device. Sure there are breakthrough inventions, but those are usually few and far between, and often require a good stroke of luck. In reality, most innovation is incremental, building upon years, decades, centuries, of past work. We wouldn’t have any of these fancy modern conveniences had we not learned to harness the power of electricity and build the infrastructure to distribute it. Even the iSuite of devices was built incrementally. Okay, so Steve Jobs was one of those once-in-a-lifetime visionaries who was capable of seeing that breakthrough vision, but to build the technology took a number of years, patents, acquisitions, etc.
What’s the point of all this? Well.. it’s the eve of a New Year, not only in Gregorian terms, but also in the Chinese Lunar calendar. I am admittedly, not great at keeping up with culture (hey, that’s why I have family/friends that are into tradition), so I have no idea if there’s any concept of New Year’s resolutions in Asian culture, but it’s been interesting talking with friends over the past weeks about their goals for 2012. A lot of health-related goals, some that have already floundered (giving up soda), others that are struggling but a work in progress (lose X pounds). As for my own goals..
So far it’s been a good year, but I’m not quite satisfied.. I feel like if I continue with my current trajectory, I’ll slip back into complacency. I want to continually push myself. Remember there’s breakthrough change and there’s incremental change. The problem most people have with New Year’s resolutions is that resolutions are mostly breakthrough change. Things that sound really great, and would be fantastic if they were achieved. Problem is, that’s like telling someone with no outdoor experience to go climb Everest. It’s daunting. I’ve never been a fan of the sink or swim school of learning. Some people love it because you can see results really quickly, it’s high risk high reward. I’d rather slowly build a solid foundation than hope for it to all come together at once. With incremental change, the key is to set small goals, achievable goals, and build discipline and continaully hit those small targets. Eventually the difficulty increases and within a few months it’s amazing what you’ll have achieved. I mean hell, if you told me at this time last year that I would be performing at salsa parties I’d tell you to piss off and sober up.
But enough of the general principles, as a rough sketch of a concrete action plan for myself, I’m setting 3 personal development goals:
1) Create something new
2) Do something that scares you
3) Learn something new
Even these goals, simple as they are, are daunting to me. That’s why I’m going to make it easier for myself. One goal each day. Plotted out on a calendar with a goal assigned to each day. For 30 days. Let’s see where I am in a month.. maybe I’ll ratchet it up a notch then. How are your goals coming along?
