Sustainability is super cool to talk about right now. I'm assuming this will be one of those words we hear so much over the next few years that it loses all its meaning, and we sort of roll our eyes whenever it comes up from then on.
Something being sustainable is not complicated as a concept, but it can be difficult to figure out in the long run. At its core, something being sustainable means that we can maintain it over the long term without depleting our resources so badly that they cannot recover.
Your Resources are Limited
This points to the heart of the problem. We talk a lot about sustainability, but much of it is based on resources that are in limited supply, so we are, at best, misusing this word.
Electric cars may be more sustainable than gas-powered cars (or they may not; I don't pay a lot of attention to this), but they require components that are in limited supply on the planet, so we will eventually have to switch to something else. They are not the ultimate solution.
This is how most people use the word sustainable when they are looking at opportunities in their lives. They don't ask themselves if it's something they can maintain for the long term; they ask themselves if they can sprint long enough to make it work for a while. I encourage people to find things they can do for the rest of their lives.
Coaching and consulting is sustainable for me. I enjoy this work. I like the kind of people it lets me work with, and it brings me a variety of changing and evolving problems so I don't get bored. These are three important criteria for me to keep doing something.
An opportunity has to be sustainable to be an open door because I do not want to help people find short-term wins that cost them in the long run or help them start things that they can only maintain by destroying their physical, mental, emotional, relational, and financial health. Open doors are a lifestyle; barely carrying the weight the weight that’s on you is not a way to live.
Recognizing Unsustainability
Here are a few ways I've learned to recognize that an opportunity is not sustainable:
You are doing mental gymnastics to convince yourself to seize it.
Mental gymnastics are often the first sign of a bad choice. It's like we know that we should not do something, but we are bringing up reasons (usually bad ones) to convince ourselves otherwise. This is always tied to short-term benefits at the expense of our long-term happiness.
I know it's got 200,000 miles on it and they bent the frame in a wreck, but it still looks good, and I've always wanted a Dodge Charger.
I know this ends in disaster every single time we get back together, but he has been sober for a week, and it sounds like things really might be different this time. He even Venmoed me the $37 he owes me.
We all know when we are trying to trick ourselves into doing something, but few people are able to stop and make better decisions. Mental gymnastics is the first sign that you are trading long-term gain for some kind of short-term happiness.
It is dependent on your very best self showing up every single day.
I get it. Some days, we feel great, and we think that those days are going to last forever. There are times in our lives when everything is clicking, and we are just cruising along with a tailwind behind us.
Please understand that these days are few and far between. You cannot put your trust in them in the long term. Look at who you are consistently and make your decisions based on that person. I promise it will make everything easier.
My best self enjoys being a part of things and showing up for the meetings and events associated with those things. Unfortunately, that guy is absent about 90% of the time, so it's never really a good idea for me to commit to being part of something that requires me to work with other people or to leave my house on a regular basis to meet up with everyone.
I have tried it in the past, and it never sticks. I have a sense of duty and responsibility, so I will drag myself to do the things I committed to, but I do not enjoy it, and I take the first responsible exit I can find. These days, I save myself a lot of time by not signing up in the first place.
It requires you to compromise your values.
Some opportunities require us to compromise the things that are most important to us. I know someone who took a telemarketing job selling magazines to elderly people because it had the potential to be lucrative, and they desperately needed work. It was a grind the entire time; they hated it, and they never made a dime because they could not get themselves to push and manipulate older people the way the script told them to.
I value freedom and autonomy above everything else. I compromise this for my family, but I've learned that I cannot compromise it for anything else if I want to stick with it. I can compromise in the short term, but not forever.
This is why the work I do works well for me - by doing things on a per-project basis with multiple clients, I'm never tied to any one source of income, and there's not one specific entity I can look at and blame for taking my freedom and autonomy from me.
It requires you to begin a new habit, especially if this is one you have failed to maintain in the past.
It's human nature to envision our best selves. We all like to believe we're really going to start that new habit on Monday, but Monday after Monday comes and goes, and we still do the same thing. I do it, and everyone I know does it with something.
In general, I am disciplined, and I do what I need to do. I don't ever really sleep past 4:30 AM, and I don't remember the last time I dropped the ball on something involving my writing or my work. If I tell someone I'm going to do something, I tend to follow through. If I don't, I can safely say it's an exception instead of the rule.
That all being said, getting myself to work out is a chore. I don't enjoy it, and it always manages to find itself at the bottom of my priority list. This is a bad choice because at my age and with some of the injuries I have, moving my body is one of the most important things I can do. This does not change the fact that I don't enjoy it.
There are times that I work out consistently and even get to where I don't mind it, but I cannot bank on these becoming the norm. Any opportunity that I step into that has some kind of requirement for working out daily would most likely become a burden to me over the long term, and I would probably end up quitting.
Don't bank on a brand new you suddenly showing up and following through on that habit you have failed to follow through on for the last 10 years.
It puts you at odds with the people who are most important to you.
It's odd to me that people have criticized me for this, but I will always put my wife and my kids above anything else I am doing. I don't do this pathologically, and there are things I say no to or work to compromise on, but I will not say yes to any opportunity that could potentially endanger my marriage or hurt my relationship with my kids.
In 20 years of working with people, one of the things that has proven to be true over and over again is the idea that the quality of our lives is determined by the people in them. You can have everything else in life, but if you don't have good people in your life or you just don't really care about people, you don't have much of anything.
I think we can see this in the lives of so many celebrities and politicians. They have everything we are supposed to want - money, fame, a good career, power - but they are miserable people living miserable lives. An opportunity that is going to cost you your relationship with the good people in your life is not an open door.
Sustainability is Global
Remember that sustainability does not just pertain to one area of your life. Something that is not financially sustainable for you will drain your mental and emotional health and, eventually, your physical health as well when you stop sleeping. This interdependence is true of everything.
Nothing exists in isolation for us. Being in physical pain chips away at how I feel emotionally and mentally at times. When I am struggling emotionally, I am not as sharp as I normally am, and I often feel physically run down. If I'm not careful, it can hit my financial health when I start to buy things to fix it, or I buy things just to buy things.
If you are reading this in America, then financial sustainability is especially important. I love America, and I feel fortunate to live here, but the simple fact is that life in this country gets harder and harder the less money you have.
In a capitalist economy, your financial health goes a long way toward determining health in other areas. There's nothing wrong with trying to be wise about your financial state when that directly impacts other parts of your life.
Wanting What You Have
Gratitude is one of the best ways to keep yourself in check regarding unsustainable opportunities. We often take risks we shouldn't or try to jump a gap that is too far for us because we are looking at what's on the other side to the exclusion of what we have all around us.
I'm often described as someone who is hard to buy gifts for because I don't really want anything. This also allows me to be content most of the time, and it keeps other people from having undue leverage over me, and keeps me from leveraging myself by overextending and crashing.
It's one of those quotes that nobody can seem to find the real source for, but there's a deep truth in the idea that true wealth consists of wanting what you already have. Gratitude allows us to be grateful for what's around us, and it makes us much less likely to overreach for things we think we have to have to be happy.
Journal Prompts
· What areas of my life feel sustainable right now, and why?
· What parts of my life are requiring me to sprint? How long can I maintain this?
· When am I most likely to do mental gymnastics to convince myself to take an opportunity?
· What does my best self look like? How often does that version of me show up?
· When have I compromised my values for short-term gains? How did this turn out?
· What habit have I most often failed to establish in my life?
· What are the warning signs that an opportunity might strain my relationship with important people in my life?
· How does financial sustainability affect my overall sense of well-being?
· What long-term opportunities could I focus on that would allow me to grow without endangering my resources?
Until Next Time
And just like that, we've covered the five criteria for an opportunity being an open door in our lives. Over the next few months, we're going to take a deep dive into gratitude and friendly curiosity, look at the importance of seeking opportunity as a lifestyle, and discuss anything else that comes up. I've enjoyed this, and I appreciate your feedback.
I published a new episode of the podcast this week. I took the leap and started filming it as a video podcast, so it's now available on YouTube, Spotify, and all the other podcast channels.
I also got an e-mail from Tiny Buddha telling me that two of my quotes will be on their 2025 calendar, and they even included one of them in the Amazon post. I just thought that was pretty cool and wanted to share it (for real - I don’t make any money off that calendar).
Thank you again, I will look forward to talking next week.
James
Such valuable insights and advice (again!!!). But I don't think you'd be that hard to buy for - Immediately what came to mind: History Books, Video Games, a new set of Air Pods! 😀