If It Isn’t Working, Fix It!
You choose the method.
Let’s admit it, some good ideas (even some great ones)simply…
… don’t work FOR YOU.
… worked before, but not now (maybe they might never work again).
… need tweaking.
From our experience, we know it takes practice to develop the clarity and awareness to realize soon enough when it’s time to make adjustments.
But having developed some practice already, for sure that awareness has saved our butts many times.
Nonetheless, getting to know which tweaks to make can be like concocting a tricky potion. One that requires discernment and detachment from your initial expectations of how things should work out.
Oh! And don’t forget to sprinkle some intuition, add some guts, and cross your fingers three times while you do it. It’s not mandatory to do it on a full moon, but it helps ;-)
If Its Not Working FOR YOU, Tailor It To Your True Needs
You might not relate exactly to the following example, but the point here is for you to take advantage of the concept, not the specifics.
Here‘s one practice we thought was a good idea at the beginning of our Nomad journey. But soon after, it became evident it needed tweaking. It just didn’t work as we expected it would.
The Whiteboard for Daily Accountability & Support
Based on the concepts «You can only manage what you measure» and «Only what gets mesure improves», and with the intention to support each other to align to what we wanted to do but were procrastinating on, two months ago we started using a dry erase whiteboard in which we drew a weekly calendar layout.
On the first column, from top to bottom, each one of us listed habits representative of our alignment and supportive of our excitement.
On the columns for each day, Monday through Sunday, at the end of the day we would add a check mark to each action taken.
Sometimes at breakfast, sometimes at dinner, we would celebrate almost daily each other’s progress (Eric was usually the one rocking it with all or mostly all of his boxes checked!).
We would also inquire each other about which kind of support we wanted or needed, as to improve our chances of following through the next day with the unchecked activities.
What didn’t work:
1. Drawing all the dividing lines needed for the one-week layout with dry erase markers, wasn’t fun and it took precious time. Hey! Time passes way too fast!
What we did about it: We drew a two-week layout. Easy choice.
It might seem a teeny tiny detail, but believe me, it made a difference that allowed us to have a clearer zoom-out perspective with more information at a glance, for measurement and feedback.
Other way in which it didn’t work:
2. As time went by, we started to see more and more boxes unchecked.
To be fair we can’t say “it didn’t work.” The unchecked boxes made visible our weak points, and that was necessary. So this is a Yes-but-No kind of “working.”
What we did about it: A couple of things. First, we kept supporting each other in seeing what we weren’t seeing. We engaged in conversations to explore and share ideas on how to face the resistances.
Second, well, we decided to be raw-honest and erase from the “habits representative of our alignment and supportive of our excitement” list, whatever we obviously were not ready to own at the moment. Independently of the reasons (valid or not).
Sometimes going along with the path of least resistance is the most efficient (and spiritual) thing you can do.
Here’s another example of something we chose to tweak.
Writing and Publishing Chronicles of our Nomads Journey
We decided to start this Chronicles as a way to “start even before being ready,” and as a way to offer value to people who could use our experiences and perspectives as references when putting their own excitement to the test.
My initial idea was to journal daily, with the desire to depict and share the intensity, power, variety, and richness of each one of our days, within the adventure to become digital Nomads while building and strengthening our business.
I’m thankful Leo convinced me to take it from daily, to twice a week!
What didn’t work:
Believe it or not, for us the process to publish one of these Chronicles might take anything between 2 to 4 hours, even when the average reading ends up at just 4 minutes. Yup.
When you add choosing a theme, stumble across the words until finding the path, sending the whole story to the trash, starting all over, editing, finding images… well, you get it. It takes time.
Honestly, when juggling with so many tasks and priorities, this 8-hours-per-week process can become an excitement-theft.
What we did about it: We reduced it to 1 blog post per week.
Another teeny tiny adjustment that makes a big difference. Not only frees up our calendar, but our energy as well.
To wrap this up
Don’t be afraid of questioning your ideas.
Are you familiar with the concept of course correction?
Think of this:
From the time an airplane takes off, until it lands a few hours later at its targeted location for landing, it will be off course approximately 75% of the time.
Well it’s not exaaaactly like that but this explanation about that theory, wrote by a commercial pilot, applies to almost any project in life:
“Aircraft navigation is a very complex endeavor, involving many multiple factors that all have to be balanced against one another. You can’t simply point an airplane in the direction you want it to go and expect it to fly straight there without guidance. That guidance involves many changes to the course, or “course correction,” over the duration of any flight.”
Independent of the percentage… course correction happens. A lot.
The purpose and role of the pilot and the avionics is to continually bring the plane back on course as many times as needed, so that it arrives on schedule at its destination.
So tweak and adjust if you need to. And course correct from an energy of excitement, not self-critic or fear.
Bon voyage!
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