How are you doing? … relative to what?
Past experiences and habits really do have an influence on future accomplishments. I’m sure you are thinking, “That’s probably pretty obvious,” and I agree, though lately I’ve been thinking of this and see more and more concrete examples of this in real life.
One example is colleagues and friends. If you think of life the progression of a line on a graph going horizontally over time, as time passes on the x-axis the line moves right. When the person suffers some loss of his own accord there is a divot but the line eventually recovers back to the level as before, maybe slightly lower. Same as with an accomplishment. The line spikes a bit, and afterwards returns back to the original level, maybe slightly higher then before. This would go on and on for the persons lifetime. Now I realize that past experiences and habits actually impact this line, rather then the line being a one dimensional horizontal line, we add a second order, rather then a slope of 0, people who have a habit of accomplishments, continue to do so as time passes. Their graph would look like a ramp. Although they might be in the middle of the ramp, you can predict that eventually they will be at at higher point as time goes on. I see this in friends / colleagues who when I meet them, have done notable things, and as time goes on, indifferent of environment, do even bigger things. This sorta takes some of the randomness out of my earlier view of life, partly influenced by being at, “the right place at the right time,” more random thinking. I now view that random stuff as a few divots or spikes on a positive sloping graph. These are some fairly abstract views, and I’m sure it would be easier to understand with actual graphs, maybe I’ll get to making some in the future.
I had thought on this perviously and today I noticed something else. Sometimes, through change you can actually decrease your slope. For example, say you have a job, which you do well in. You write up numerous documents, you produce great programs, whatever is it, you work hard and do it well. Then you switch jobs, you now have a new boss, new work, new expectations, etc. Soon you find that you are doing ordinary work. No longer are you preforming at that previous level, your line is more flat. Certainly this is counter to what I said before, but bear with me a minute here. Today I had to write up an invoice for a room I’m renting and I pulled up a few invoices I had done for an older company I started and ran. I was impressed when I realized how much work I had done, and how good the work was (starting the business, licenses, invoicing, negotiations, marketing, accounting, etc, etc). I actually admired my own work and realized how much different I am now, then that entrepreneur I was. I’m not going to reminisce much more, but what it did was remind me of my potential with concrete examples of what I had done and actually motivates me to perform again at that level.
Reminders… hmm, yeah I need some of those. Before I thought people who put awards in their offices were just showing off, now I realize they could serve as reminders to great past deeds and possibly inspire future ones. They are another example of embracing something you admire/appreciate and leveraging that pass accomplishment to fuel future activities, rather then simply the temporary reward it yields at the time.
In retrospect, I realize that the earlier line/slope I discussed was more like a persons habits and long-term desire to better themselves. I think discussed how one’s environment effects this trend/slope. “No man is an island,” as they say. Those who go on to achieve great things probably have a great synergy of those to factors, motivation with solid habits, and an environment which not only allows for growth, but inspires it.
Impressive and true! Never thought of it that way.. but after reading it, I think I see it. I too get impressed by myself when I look at my past, and I sorta get depressed by what I see now
But like you said, you need to remind yourself about your potential, and think about what’s POSSIBLE and not just what’s AVAILABLE.