Are You Pushing or Sharpening?
By Audrey Seymour
I heard a wonderful story from a friend the other
day. As she recounted the tale of a wood-chopping
contest between a young man and a village elder, at
first it sounded like a familiar story in new
clothes. While the young man chopped continually and
furiously, the old man sat down for 20 minutes every
hour. "I know who's going to win!" I thought.
Well, it does turn out that the old man wins the
wood chopping contest, but not for the reason
you might think. Here's how the story ends:
"How could you have chopped more wood than I?"
asked the puzzled young man. "I chopped longer and
with more strength!" "Ah" said the old man. "You
didn't notice that while I was sitting down, I was
sharpening my axe."
Where in your life are you pounding away with all
your effort, thinking that if you just push a bit
longer you'll get things the way you want? Where do
you need to stop and make sure that "your axe is
sharp" and that you are cutting in the right direction?
Many of us are faced with a work ethic that we
inherited from our parents' generation and the
unique challenges of their time. From this
perspective, we experience a greater sense of value
when we are in the act of pushing to produce. Do
you feel guilty when you are not accomplishing
something? Have you ever found yourself thinking
"At least I'm doing something!" when nothing
seems to be working?
It can be helpful sometimes if you feel frozen in
fear to just take an action to get your energy
moving again. However, in today's hectic world, it
is too easy to find ourselves pushing through tasks
that we "have to do" or events that we "have to
attend." But what is the cost to the quality of the
result, even apart from the cost to you?
When I was a software development manager, some
engineers on my team would feel that working until
1 am (no matter how tired they were) would insure
that we met our deadline. As a final stretch to the
finish line it was exhilarating for them, but when
they pushed through exhaustion on a regular basis,
they wrote code that was full of errors. And
sometimes it took
months to uncover all the bugs, not to mention
fixing them!
The hidden costs of constantly pushing can creep
up on you months or years later, when burnout or
boredom shows up. Is your work feeling stale? Are
you having trouble remembering why you wanted to
start this business / take that job in the first
place? You may not need a new job or a different
line of work; you may only need to sharpen your
approach to getting things done.
What would sharpening your axe mean in
your work?
- Perhaps you've been so busy attending every possible networking
event nearby that you don't have time to take courses to stay current
in your field. Imagine instead choosing only the events that would
draw your ideal clients and colleagues, and then getting reinspired
with a valuable class in your free time.
- Perhaps your work places a value on presence, but you book your
clients so closely together that you are edgy by the end of the day.
Sharpening your axe might mean scheduling a 5-minute meditation break
between each one to keep your presence clear and leave you energized
by the end of the day.
- Or perhaps you're feeling pressured to sell your boss's struggling
product. Imagine instead making a much bigger contribution by taking
the time to explore options for a totally new product that would serve
the customers better and therefore sell better.
Only by being willing to step outside of the
inertia of "pushing to get it done" and facing the
discomfort of apparent "unproductivity" will you
be able to cut through old patterns. It is then that
you will be able to attain real leaps in
productivity and
fulfillment.
© 2005 Audrey Seymour. All rights reserved.
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