This post started as a draft from December before COVID-19 became something impacting the world. I recently went back through old drafts seeing where my mind had been and this one jumped out as being even more important now than it was at the time.
Every now and then, the world changes. Sometimes the world that changes is just your own personal world, sometimes the business world, and, as shown through COVID-19, the entire world can change. The ideas and concepts that created success in the past may be exactly wrong for where the world has moved to.
It is not uncommon for most of us to cling to a view of the world based on past experience. The scar tissue that gave us that experience can be difficult to work through. We don’t want to give back the battles we’ve won along the way just to start over again. No one wants to take five quick steps back if they don’t have to. But sometimes the starting line moves regardless of what we want and we can either pretend it didn’t move or adjust to the new reality.
Change is constant in life. It comes whether we want it or not. But not all change happens quickly, it is usually slow and difficult to see. Think about the way we change as individuals. Over some period of time, we collect a series of experiences and make decisions that impact our day-to-day. This collection comes to impact who we are and how we approach new situations. Sometimes new experience comes in big, notable waves, and other times it slowly shifts like the changing of the tides.
The trouble is when we cling to an idea that is no longer true. If you are still making decisions based on a past belief that hasn’t been revisited, you may be making decisions opposite of how you actually want. Think of someone just about to graduate college, they’ve spent some years with a (often vague) picture in their mind of what comes next. They will then approach how they write their resume, how they interview, and what jobs they apply for based on that view. After two years in their first job, they should be revisiting their resume in light of new information and thinking about the types of jobs they want based on their new history. Yet, many (if not most) continue to build from the resume they put together while still in college and actually narrow their job search to things that look similar-ish to the job they received.
This same reality is true of even people 30 years out of college. I’ve seen many resumes from people with significant experience that clearly started from a template from way back. Or they find themselves in a role where they decide to settle in and not worry about changing, they pretend they can carry on until they decide to change. Sometimes that works. Sometimes the world brings the change to them anyway.
Self-reflection may be the most valuable skill any person can have. Know yourself, your strengths and your weaknesses. Know why you make the decisions you do. Understand how you instinctively respond to events. Know when your instincts serve you well and when they don’t. Essentially, act on up-to-date information in all things.