Author: cbarney.45

“Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.” – Mahatma Gandhi

There’s nothing wrong with disagreeing with someone. In fact, it’s often crucial that you do. if you are always agreeable, you won’t step on anyone’s toes, but you will be doing a disservice to whomever you’re talking with by not telling them how you feel.

When you do disagree with someone, make sure to be kind and respectful – no name calling, don’t raise your voice or try to intimidate the other person, and stick with objective facts as much as possible.

Don’t be afraid to let them how something makes you feel or if you think there might be negative consequences to their actions. You can play devil’s advocate, but know when to stop, otherwise you run the risk of always seeming to be a “Debbie Downer.”

At the end of each day and each week, rake a moment to reflect upon what went well and what can be improved.

How can you experience more of what went well? What preparation led to that outcome? Remember to focus on your actions leading up to the results, as that is what you can control, not the results themselves.

How can you decrease the amount of bad experiences you encounter throughout the day/week/month? Where are you encountering friction? When do you feel stressed? Can you put processes in place to eliminate, or at least to minimize, these feelings?

Work to solve the root cause of the issue(s), not the symptoms.

How we do one thing is how we do everything. If you notice someone who tries to cut corners or has questionable ethics when it comes to certain actions, chances are they do this in other areas of life too. Watch for any red flags…if something seems out of character from someone you are acquainted with, maybe you don’t know them as well as you think. That’s not to say that mistakes don’t happen and that everything is calculated/done on purpose, but it is something to be aware of.

Also, remember that actions speak louder than words. Many people can talk a good game. Talking is easy. It’s the follow through that is the hard part. Watch what others do and how they act (especially towards others who cannot help them in the near future). If you can see through their words and focus on their actions, you can see what a person is truly about.

There’s a concept when working out called “time under tension,” which equates improvement in strength and muscle growth by increasing the length of time that the muscle is working in a given repetition. An example of this would be slowly controlling the eccentric and concentric contractions of an exercise so that even though you may still only be doing 10 reps in a set, it might take you 60 seconds to complete rather than the 30 seconds that it took previously. The longer your muscles are stressed (being under the tension of the weight) the stronger they will grow. The effect is a cumulative effort, as the results are not immediate, but the more time you can withstand under tension without getting hurt, the better your results will be. And if you can recover quickly and then either increase the length of your workouts, increase the intensity, or increase the frequency in which you work out, you will see the results more quickly. The same concept can be applied to other areas of our lives.

If you’re entering a new field of study or employment, how can you increase your time under tension so that you grow as quickly and sustainably as possible? How can you “catch up” to those who are more experienced than you? After all, if they’ve been doing this for ten years when you get started, won’t they always be ten years more experienced than you if they don’t retire? The easy answer there is yes, of course. But the easy answer isn’t necessarily the right answer. Let me explain…

People say that nothing beats experience. I mostly agree with that sentiment because with experience, you’re usually able to be a better predictor of what will happen based on similar scenarios from the past. The problem that I have is the way that we define or measure experience. The easiest way to quantify how much experience someone has is based on years doing something. And if everything were equal, that might be a good item to measure. But we don’t all put in the same effort in a given day and we don’t all learn at the same pace. Let’s look at a couple of examples…

If Person A worked on Task 1 for five years, but they only worked at it for two hours every weekday, and Person B works on the same task eight hours per day, six days per week, for one year, who would you feel is more knowledgeable?

If we’re just counting the length of time working on that task, Person A has five years experience compared to Person B’s one year. Person A wins hands down. Even if we look at the hours accumulated over that span, Person A would have 2,600 hours of experience while Person B would have 2,496 hours of experience. So does that make Person A is the better choice for you to trust and rely upon to complete that task? Probably not. I’d probably rather work with the person who is working on that task day in and day out.

That’s like saying a guy working out twice per week for ten years will be in better shape than the guy who goes to the gym everyday for three years. As long as they’re pushing themselves and completing effective programming, the guy with the compacted workout schedule will experience more growth due to the time that he is spending under tension. The intensity in which he is working out is greater (intensity being doing the same amount of work in less time, not necessarily effort exerted in a particular workout).

This is where length of time (measured in years) fails us when trying to predict who will produce the best results. It has become our default answer because it is easy to see. But don’t confuse someone’s experience with years they spent doing something. They are not the same.

Now, turning the focus back on you…How much time you are spending under tension will determine how quickly you can grow. Do not be discouraged by having a lack of experience in something. Everyone was new to something at some point. The only way to gain experience is by doing it. Do as much of it as you can without feeling like you’re going to burn out or get injured. If you can’t retain your gains (intellectually or physically), you need to slow down. It’s about quality, not quantity. Now go out there and spend some time under tension.

“It’s easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.” – Benjamin Franklin

If you know something is bad for you, why would you do it? Why run the risk of having it become a habit? This becomes an even more true statement for those with addictive personalities. If you know that you have addictive tendencies, try to use that to your advantage by participating in healthy activities that keep you out of trouble and move you towards reaching your full potential (doing activities with your family, reading, writing, exercising, etc.). If you try something just to experience it, make sure that you think about how it can impact your future (positively or negatively).