Recovering from an entirely made up standard

"People adjust to the level of the demands made on them."

"People grow according to the demands they make on themselves."

Reading The Effective Executive, these lines were just a few pages apart and caused me to pause. At a glance, I thought they might be in contradiction of one another. But on second thought maybe not. So, I’ll write to find out.

What demands are being made of me right now?

Lately, at work the demands being made are very high in some regards (volume, timeline) and too low in others (technical depth). I am definitely craving an environment in my career that places high demands on me. I thrive when trying to meet a high bar. Right now I'm unsure if the type of bar that is being set is the right one.

I want to work on deeply technical problems. Ones that force me to sit with my eyes closed and my head in my hands. For example, I’m considering an experiment where I train my own AI model and dabble in machine learning. I studied math and I'd love to reacquaint myself with linear algebra. I want that type of hard problem.

The difficulty in this project isn't the technical depth of the software, it's the lack of clarity around how to achieve desired results. I've recently been put in the driver's seat of that type of ambiguity for the first time. By October 31, we need X result. The thing is, the path to X result was not at all clear. There was no playbook. There was no obvious path forward. The complexity in this project was finding that way.

I had to take a very unclear/nonexistent path and make a path simple enough to communicate to a wider team, receive their buy in, and get them to start moving the project towards the goal. Ideally, doing this without my hand holding. That is where the complexity came from.

What demands am I making on myself?

I want to excel in my career. I want to do difficult work. I want to do exceptional work. I want to deliver for stakeholders meaning I want my work to have immediate impact for people I have direct contact with. Not “customers” in the abstract, but people who directly depend on me.

With my side work, I've put a lot of pressure on myself to work on it diligently. I committed to it this year. But other parts of life were pressing for my attention: my job that actually pays the bills. I wanted to do my side work and I had to do my day job.

Lowering the bar on my goals/standards often feels like giving up to me. To lay off it, to not see a goal through to completion, makes me feel like I'm letting myself down.

For a month or two, there was a lot of tension there. I don't let myself off the hook so easily when I say I'm going to do something; I intend to do it as stated.

After several weeks of tension and longing for things to not be this way, I re-read The Power of Now as I always do when I'm in a difficult season. It helped me accept that what I want right now is just not in the cards. It recalibrated my patience and helped me accept what is right now.

Once I let go of the entirely made up standard of the side work, I had enough energy to give to the full time work. I felt lighter. I felt compassion for myself. That’s something I've owed myself recently.

I felt the universe has a plan and I was reminded of my adage that life should come with a sense of ease. Not that life should be easy, but when you are spending your energy on the right things, life should feel like you are running downhill. You have a sense of momentum with the energy of the universe at your back.

When every single moment is a slog, that is a signal something needs to change, even if that change is only an internal mindset shift.

Acceptance of what is creates that ease.

I show up and I accept the work. I put in my all. I evaluate my day and measure the success on how well I accomplished my work for the day. Since my work is narrower (no side projects), I have a greater acceptance and pride in what I accomplished, rather than a feeling of lack because I did not do my side work.

In the earlier phase of the huge project I'm working on, I saw a mountain of work ahead of me. It overwhelmed the shit out of me and so I pushed and pushed and pushed.

A month later I came up for air and realized the project has moved 50% towards completion in 33% of the timeline. An unreal accomplishment I never would have thought could happen a month ago.

I realized I was succeeding in the thing I had never done before. The overwhelm of the uncertainty started to subside, and an intrinsic confidence arose. "I know I can do this because I'm doing this."

I'm not done, but I sense I've recuperated a large portion of my energy that I'd previously been burning. I feel a sense of creativity and excitement for the growth that is coming from this huge effort.

I wonder, where is the line between bearable pain and burnout? I’ve certainly been toeing it. But I am sensing the pain I’ve been feeling is not all bad and is leading to a lot of professional growth.

I want technical depth in my career. That is the growth edge I feel I am missing.

I think the demands you make on yourself are often more flexible to change than demands others make on you. That's not to say you are totally victim to the demands of others, I do think you have power over the rooms you place yourself in and the people you surround yourself with, but I often say it is far easier to change your view of the world than to change the world itself.

Exceptional work means giving a full effort to the work that is in front of me in whatever capacity I am capable of right now. I take pride in doing my work with a high standard of excellence. By expecting too much of myself, I can't reach my desired standard of excellence.

The purpose of this write up is not to figure out how things will be in the future. It's to make sense of the recent past that got me here. Clarity of mind helps move forward in time, but man plans and God laughs. So rather than force the future, the clearer I see things today, the more swiftly I can move ahead in this season of my life.