The 85% Solution, Self-Sabotage, & Ruthless Focus
Sunday Reset: #2
This week’s reset:
Quote: Prioritizing focus.
Idea: The 85% solution.
Article: How to stop holding yourself back.
🚨 One quote:
Keep the main thing the main thing.
— Ravi Gupta (ex-COO/CFO of Instacart, Investor at Sequoia)
Now, this sounds very vague.
Ravi and Patrick argue that a company or person having 5+ goals is counterproductive because then little to no progress is made on each goal or worse, really good progress is made on 2 goals that don’t matter, and none on the one that actually matters.
So if you don’t “keep the main thing the main thing”, you do not get done the most important thing.
Instead, you are valuing general activity over progression on your main #1 driving factor.
Key takeaway: What additional factors are you including in your personal life that is spreading yourself thin?
💡 One idea
The 85% solution
It’s very easy to put things off because we don’t feel ready.
This lack of readiness is often due to fear of failure. But it can also be because we feel haven’t researched/studied enough, or there are perceived risks associated with the task.
This is where the idea of the 85% solution comes to play.
Obsessing about the perfect solution for a problem is itself a form of inaction. Perfectionism and procrastination go hand in hand.
When approaching a new challenge, task, or project — just start.
Starting is easier said than done but start knowing that when you’re midway through attempting a solution, you’ll learn what actually you need to learn or research to improve your solution. Instead of committing productive procrastination by researching/googling/setting up for 18 days before actually starting.
The most important concepts and frameworks to learn can come from actually making an attempt.
Author and entrepreneur, Ramit Sethi, explains this concept when approaching your own personal finances.
Too many of us get overwhelmed thinking we need to manage our money perfectly, which leads us to do nothing at all. That’s why the easiest way to manage your money is to take it one step at a time—and not worry about being perfect. I’d rather act and get it 85 percent right than do nothing.
Think about it: 85 percent of the way is far better than zero percent.— Excerpt from “I Will Teach You to Be Rich”
(very clickbait fake guru type title, but in fact a decent book)
It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s better to have them earlier in the process, rather than 2 days before the deliverable is due.
Start that thing that you know you should be doing, by remembering that starting is half the battle.
No solution is ever perfect. There will always be some person who has their objections. There will always be a small bug. There will always be an inefficiency.
But by starting, you are making progress towards something, and doing 85% of something is better than not taking any action at all.
(now it’s time for me to start applying this to learning Spanish 😂)
Key takeaway: What am I pushing off because I know I can’t make it perfect?
🗞 One article
Things you need to do to stop holding yourself back
Over the past week, I’ve really enjoyed reading through Deb Liu’s Substack, Perspectives. She is the current President and CEO of Ancestry but built her career at Facebook. On Perspectives, she shares personal lessons on her experiences in tech, leadership, and parenthood.
Some of what I’ve enjoyed from her are the best practice frameworks for approaching certain career scenarios based on her experience:
However, one part of one post has resonated with me the most. It was from her article on “Things You Need to Do to Stop Holding Yourself Back”.
In the article she lists 8 negative barriers to break:
Let go of perfectionism
Break free of the sunk cost fallacy
Stop ruminating
Think of your future self
Make space for the small things
Look forward, not back
Run your own race
Embrace the risk of being judged
Number 3, stop ruminating, resonated the most with me. At times, I find myself haunted by the things I’ve said, dwelling over past negative experiences (sometimes from years ago) and feeling regretful about my actions.
Deb describes this as “torturing yourself”.
It can be so hard to step back and move out of these negative feedback loops, but re-assessing and focusing on what you can control in this current moment can help pull you out.
Deb recommends writing down your feelings and self-questioning with the following:
What could I learn from these experiences?
How could I be proactive going forward?
What is in your power to change in this current moment?
How can you reframe your thoughts and worries in a way that is kinder to yourself?
Overall, it’s a really great article and one that I’m going to use to be kinder to myself and to make more small positive changes 😊
I hope you had an amazing weekend and I hope you have an awesome week.
Enjoy this beautiful summer weather 🕶☀️
— Sul
You don't miss! Great read again!