Lessons Learned
My initial plan when I started doing this stuff online was to offer broad, non-controversial truths that could help people improve their lives without any drama. This did create very little drama, but it also wasn't very helpful to anyone because it was all stuff they already knew, and people still complained about it anyway.
I’ve since learned that not only can you not make everyone happy, you should not try. I never want to be someone who uses controversy or rage bait (it's sad that's a word now), but I had to admit that I wasn't being fully authentic in what I had to say because I was trying so hard not to step on anyone's toes. It sucks sometimes, but to say anything worth hearing, you have to upset some people from time to time.
I’ve also learned that having a lot of people who are indifferent to what you have to say may look good on follower counts email address spreadsheets, but it will keep you from ever gaining real traction. It is much better to have 100 people who are invested in you than 10,000 who follow and then ignore you.
I say all that because we are going to spend the next 4 posts talking about the idea of walking through open doors as a mindset, and this is where I often lose some people.
Mindset versus Life Hack
We all like bullet points and lists and quick, actionable items, but these do not last if we don’t pair them with shifts in how we see the world. It’s the difference between going to the gym because you want to look good for your upcoming beach vacation versus realizing you are going to die 30 years earlier than you should and your quality of life is terrible. One leads to yo-yoing, the other has a chance to lead to permanent change.
Successful people do not skip from idea to idea and philosophy to philosophy. They are not always looking for the next new idea or practice that is going to save them. Instead, they cultivate healthy mindsets, and then they explore things through them with a sense of joy and curiosity.
Over the next four weeks, we are going to cover 4 mindsets that I have found are essential to walking through open doors:
· Pragmatism
· Ownership
· Gratitude
· Friendly curiosity
The First Mindset: Pragmatism
Pragmatism is an underused word, and this makes it seem more complicated than it is. At its core, pragmatism is a practical approach to thinking and decision-making. Instead of focusing on theories or abstract ideas, pragmatists prioritize what works in real life.
It's about choosing actions or beliefs based on their usefulness and results rather than on whether they fit a specific ideology or principle. In simple terms, it's asking, "What's the most effective solution to this problem?" and going with what actually helps you achieve your goals.
Pragmatism is in direct opposition to the current spirit of our culture and society, which tells us that ideology trumps everything. This has permeated all parts of our culture. It is not confined to religion, non-religion, or left or right-wing politics.
None of this is personal. I am indifferent to things that do not have an impact on people's quality of life. If this blind devotion to ideology did not have real consequences for real people and create real suffering, I would not care about it.
I follow a page on Facebook that proposes theoretical fights between different superheroes from different universes - picture Superman (DC comics) fighting Spiderman (Marvel comics) or The Terminator fighting Neo from the Matrix.
People argue in the comments, and some of them get pretty salty because comic books don't necessarily have the most socially adept fan base a lot of the time (and I say that as somebody who likes comic books enough to follow this page).
I disagree with people's assessments of how things would turn out and often think they are wrong, but I've never posted a comment in this group, and I doubt I ever will. We are talking about fictitious people fighting fictitious people; there is no real-world impact.
This turning away from pragmatism and turning toward the idea that theories supersede reality has very real consequences, though, and I see them so frequently that they seem to be the norm. This might be less awful if the prevailing theories and ideas weren’t geared to disempower us in the guise of compassion, but we have to deal with what we have, not how we wish things were (pragmatism).
The Consequences of Unchecked Idealism
Refusing to be pragmatic when it comes to the opportunities in your life is fatal. I've worked with people whose theories and ideologies prevented them from recognizing opportunity, and I've worked with people whose theories and ideologies made them reach for opportunities that were not theirs. You can see this by how they used mental gymnastics to negate the criteria we've talked about.
Immediate
I remember one young woman who consistently turned down jobs after college because she did not feel like they were high level enough for her level of experience (college was the extent of her experience). Because she refused to be pragmatic and recognize that many of the jobs she was being offered would get her to where she wanted to be over the next few years, she did not start the journey at all. Her belief about what kind of job she should have caused her to ignore the immediate open doors that were around her.
Affordable
The idea of something needing to be affordable to be an open door is probably the criteria most impacted by pragmatism. I worked in universities for close to ten years, and for five of them, I worked directly with students as a counselor, mentor, and adjunct professor.
I saw so many students invest well over $100,000 into degrees that were not going to get them a job that would allow them to live comfortably, much less pay off their student loans. I can't count how many conversations I've had with people who continued to pursue degrees with no market value whatsoever because we, as a society, "should" value what the job offers.
I want to be clear: I am not saying that the information they obtained in their degree was not interesting and possibly even useful in some way, only that I see a lot of them now over-leveraged in their lives because they believed a “should” over an “is ."One of the key elements of pragmatism is dealing with reality as it is instead of how we wish it was.
Exciting
Pragmatism is important when we are assessing whether an opportunity is exciting for us because it can help us sift through some of the emotional overwhelm that comes with a new opportunity that seems to have a lot of potential in it.
I was working with a small business owner who had been struggling to take his company to the next level. There's always a scary gap between where people are and where they want to be, and no matter how much planning and preparation goes into it, it always requires a leap of faith of some kind. I often tell people that my job as their coach is to help them find ways to make that gap as small as possible, but it's always going to be there.
This man I had an old friend/former business partner pop up and offer a partnership and some money that had the potential to get him to that next step he wanted to take. The problem was that they had worked together before, and this person had proven to be unreliable and a little bit shady. It was that difficult kind of shady where it's not so overt that it sends you sprinting for the exit, but it's definitely there enough that it's going to be a problem.
When we were able to step back and look at the most likely outcome, he realized that partnering with this person again was going to cause a lot more trouble than it was going to fix, and he decided to say no. It took a few more months than he wanted, but he ended up finding a way to do the things he wanted to do without tying himself to a difficult person.
Aligned
Being pragmatic not only helps us recognize if something is aligned with our values, it also gives us a filter to explore our values.
One of the first things I do with a lot of people is to take a deep dive into their values because there is often a difference between what they believe their values are and what they actually are. It's a hard sell sometimes, but it's important that I help them understand that it's better to be pragmatic and acknowledge what drives you than it is to deceive yourself because you want to be socially acceptable.
We are often encouraged and even subtly bullied toward accepting values that may be good in and of themselves but do not align with what is most important to us. I have seen people stay in bad relationships, stay at bad jobs, and tolerate terrible behavior from long-term friends out of a sense of loyalty or some idea about what is required to be a real friend.
For a long time, I pursued the idea of a work-life balance because it was what I was “supposed” to do. I tried to have a certain number of hours each week where I did nothing and were dedicated to leisure.
I was miserable until I admitted that I hated that time. I do not feel rested or recharged from doing nothing. I do not enjoy watching television shows or sports. I am happiest when I am creating or doing something in the world.
This doesn't mean I sit at my computer all the time, but it did help me recognize that my leisure time often looks more like fixing things around the house, doing woodwork, or even mowing the lawn sometimes. It was forcing myself into a mold I didn't fit in until I was able to look and what was important to me pragmatically.
Sustainable
Lastly, we have to be pragmatic about what is sustainable for us. I spoke with somebody last week who was taking on more than they could carry and saying yes to too many things because they “should” be able to carry that much weight over the long term.
It took longer than it should have, but after we laid out the very concrete, very real-world implications of the things they were saying yes to - what time it would require them to get up, how it would cut into their hobbies, how it would cut into what time they go to bed, how it would impact their primary relationships, what it looked like in light of some health conditions they have - they were able to recognize that this was absolutely not an open door for them.
Shoulding Everywhere
You'll notice one word was often present when people were talking themselves into making a bad choice: should. Should is one of the most dangerous words in the English language because it masquerades as having a kind of authority that it does not have.
When we let the word “should” have too much impact on our decision-making, it forces us to give a lot of weight to things that may not actually correspond with reality.
Just because you think a company should factor in your college experience as work experience doesn't mean they will.
Just because you think post-Medieval Russian music is an important topic for the world doesn't mean anybody is willing to pay you to pursue it, even if you think they should.
Just because you are excited about something doesn't mean it's a good idea and you should pursue it.
Just because you think something should be valuable to you does not mean that you actually feel that way.
Just because you think you should be able to do something does not mean you can actually do that thing.
My body reminds me of this last one every single day.
Put a little tripwire in your brain for the word should and become very skeptical of any decision you are making that has it at its center. If you cannot remove the word should from the equation and still have a reason for doing what you're doing, it's probably a bad idea.
I don't wear my seat belt because I should. I wear my seat belt because I don't want to get a ticket and because I've been in a car crash without one, and it was bad. Should is unnecessary.
Journal Prompts
· What “shoulds” have I been holding onto that don’t correspond with reality?
· Where do I make decisions based on ideology rather than practicality? What would change if I focused on what works?
· What recent decisions have I made that weren't pragmatic? How did they turn out?
· How do I differentiate between what is achievable versus what I wish were true?
· Am I investing time, energy, or money into things that don’t provide a tangible return? What needs to change?
· Where am I overcommitting myself because I think I “should” be able to handle more? How can I become more realistic about my capacity?
· What values do I claim to hold because I feel like I “should”?
· What are my current goals, and are they grounded in practical steps I can take today, or are they built on idealized thinking?
The Limits of Pragmatism
I am talking about pragmatism in the sense of recognizing and assessing opportunities. I am not saying that every decision in our life needs to be pragmatic. I make a lot of my decisions based on my gut, and I do a lot of things that are less than pragmatic for the people I love. Our lives are not meant to be data-driven checklists - we are more than that.
That being said, when it comes to assessing opportunities as they come our way, we cannot let things like opinions, philosophies, or ideologies hold more sway than they have earned. There is room for these things, but at the end of the day, we must make sure the decisions we are making are going to benefit us and the people we love in the long run.
The devil is in the ditches, don’t turn any of this into a hard and fast rule.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading. I'm working on getting a new podcast out this week, and I think I'm finally settling into a flow over on Instagram.
I appreciate you reading this; I appreciate you being you.
Take care,
James