Failure

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. "
Bill Cosby US comedian & television actor (1937 - )

Two weeks of the most intense activity, even more so than in the early hectic days in the summer. The inevitable consequence of extreme busyness is that you have to prioritize. You cannot fulfill all requests - something has to give. If you "succeed" at work under these circumstances, then there's a good chance that you may not be present at home. If, conversely, you "succeed" at home during a period of intense demands at work, then there's a good chance that work may be taking a hit. If you somehow manage to keep both going, you may be neglecting your body, or your friends, or your personal development. Or, perhaps you simply may not be keeping in touch with your relations, or attending your club etc.

Depending on how many stakeholders you have in your life, the demands can be quite challenging to meet. But often you can establish an equilibrium that is quite fulfilling under normal circumstances. This fragile balance between your supply of energy, time and attention to the different stakeholders is shattered when one area goes into crisis-mode with a step change in demand level. Here is where you run the risk of slipping into failure-mode - where you try to meet all the demands, you try to please everybody.

One concept I discuss in the Four Elements framework (see http://www.bobowest.com) is Flow. One metaphor for flow is water in a pipe. When the pressure is turned up, the water flows faster, but if the pipe has many holes in it, the flow is disrupted. The holes in the pipe are those demands that turn your attention from the most important stakeholders in your life. And, in this, you need to be very honest about what you value most. Some people claim that work is not important and then go into panic and depression when that aspect of their lives deteriorates. Given that we often spend over eight hours per day at work, it would seem to have an intrinsic high value merely because of the volume of our lives that at lived there. Not to mention the financial value it brings. Family is also critically important, ultimately much more so than work. So is health. But you need to look closely at some of the other areas. Also, within one area, do you really need to satisfy everyone' s demands or are some customers more important than others?

I guess the crux of the matter is that saying yes to one thing often means saying no to another so we need to be very conscious of what we are saying no to. But, ultimately, we have to question the nature of failure itself. Is a bad result really failure? What if you bounce back and address the issue with renewed vigour? Do you really fail if you keep driving forwards?

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. "
Sir Winston Churchill, British politician (1874 - 1965)