The story of the Hare vs the Tortoise always bothered me.
While it certainly does have a lot of great takeaways such as:
Don't be overconfident.
Complacency can quickly set in when you are winning.
Slow and steady wins the race.
What I never understand was why the hare didn't just finish the race?
The more I think about it; the story has many parallels to life as a whole.
Life doesn't have a finish line that we can cross to let the world know we have won.
We can set goalposts such as a certain level of material success, spiritual enlightenment or the perfect family.
The truth of the matter is that each of these destinations seems far more vivid in their pursuit. The closer we get to them, the higher our level of complacency tends to rise.
We give these period names such as the mid-life crisis.
I have several friends who are stuck in this loop and find it very difficult to pull themselves out of it.
The one factor that I see missing in almost all of them is a lack of urgency. The root cause is far more complex.
Why is it that some people lose urgency?
We lose urgency when we have lost our path. The goals and aspirations we once had have decayed over years of struggle.
When we accept the status quo for what it is.
The tricky thing is that very few people openly accept that they have lost urgency. It is displayed through an incongruence of their words and actions.
Every day we hear about the dreams and aspirations of others.
Yet, week after week, the progress is slow.
Your level of ambition needs to equal the level of effort.
Everyone aspires for a blissful, successful and happy life.
What most people do not want to do is the work that is required to achieve their goals and aspirations.
We will be quick to blame our workload, the environment and a myriad of excuses to cover for the fact that we are losing urgency.
To truly be a high performer, the sacrifices required are many.
Here are a few things you could do to gauge your level of urgency:
Are you clear on where your career is heading over the next 2 - 4 years?
Are you actively working on acquiring the skills required to get you to where you want to go?
How much of your week are you spending in the pursuit of these priorities?
Do you regularly benchmark yourself and set goals on a monthly, quarterly and yearly basis to gauge improvement?
Do you spend time reflecting on how you can shorten the time it would take to get to your eventual goals?
Many people get started on #1. A handful of them can clearly articulate in detail where they are heading. A smaller percentage can tell you the why behind why they want to go there.
Then there is a steep decline in the individuals who work their way down the list.
In a world where we are always busy, how do we take out of the time?
The next time you complain about not being able to manage your time, grow in your position or be able to move up the career progression pyramid, ask yourself whether you have the correct sense of urgency.