There are so many ways of answering this question – circumstances, resources, weather, location to name a small handful – that we could easily get lost and distracted for an hour or two doing just that. Which would lead us to one of the most fascinating of ways we human beings have for stopping ourselves doing stuff – procrastination. But as interesting and delightfully distracting as that avenue might be to wander down it’s not what I’m thinking about today.
Today I wanted to write about labels – the various badges we give ourselves that inform what we do and what we don’t do.
One of my most persistent labels is, “I’m not a runner” – I’m not exactly sure but I think it was created when I was about 12 and I’ve said it so many times in the more than 2 decades since that really it had to be true. And yet, this Friday will find me doing my first official 5km run.
It will not even mildly surprise the sports psychologists amongst you (amateur or professional) that I am able to do the run on Friday because of a shift in mindset. For me, the hard part of even registering for the event, let alone actually going out running to train for it, has been 100% mental.
Often we will use a label of what we are to say what we are not – mine was always, “I’m a swimmer, not a runner”, as if the two were mutually exclusive – no Venn diagrams here. I’ve heard people being asked if they like dogs and replying, “no, I’m a cat person”.
In the workplace I think there is a great deal of mutual exclusivity created – “I’m strategic so I can’t really do operational stuff”.
Creating mutual exclusive categories seems to come very naturally to us and perhaps the Darwinists would argue that doing so encourages specialization and therefore greater productivity, success and all round better results. And there may be something in this.
However, are you using your labels (either self created or bestowed upon you by colleagues, bosses, friends, family, society) to stop you doing what you really want to do?
So, here’s my invitation: write down 10 labels you have about yourself. Don’t stop to worry about where they came from or even whether they’re true or not. And look hard – many of our labels are so insidious and hard-wired we don’t even know we are wearing them.
Now consider how helpful they are to you. And if they’re not – bin them.
Then enjoy creating some new ones.