Is enough, enough?
❓The Question
"Am I doing Enough?"
It's a question that constantly runs through my mind in all aspects of my life - my work, my family and even my own hobbies - am I doing enough? And is it enough to be deemed successful?
I know the answer when I ask this of myself in the majority of situations but for others, its a conundrum where I know I'm not doing enough - that I could push success to the next level by just committing myself way more (in terms of time or effort) than I am but I know this would have a detrimental effect on other areas of my life.
This isn't in the sense of some modern day entrepreneur who is looking for success and wants to 'hustle' hard to build an empire but it's a tightrope to tread in my normal life all while juggling the myriad of commitments I've already said yes to and not dropping the ball or missing the next step.
Don't get me wrong, I'm also acutely aware of my own limitations and the important commitments which I can't ever drop the ball on - I know its something that I can manage but I also have dreams and aspirations.
✅ The Vote
Most of these dreams and aspirations can be tamed and put into a box labelled 'Not right now Matthew, your Wife won't approve..' but others feel more pressing and ambitious (where you read ambitious, you could also substitute it for 'fun') - for example, back in November 2021 I ran a poll on my LinkedIn to funnel some of these labelled aspirations and garner some public opinion on what I should attempt to complete in 2022 - in all honesty, I want to complete all four of these challenges (skateboarding most of all) and I probably will try to do them all in varying degrees of success but in my own brain, I want to be successful in all of them and that's debilitating.
(For those of you who voted - I'll be starting to learn how to free-stand backflip in the coming weeks and I got a skateboard for Christmas so that's on the list for 2022 too..)
🔧 The Spanner
And then comes the big spanner in the works - I also want/need to be successful in my own career.
This takes work and its a long drawn out process but it's also a consistent commitment - I've worked in my job now for 3.5 years and during that time, I've reshaped the sales efforts to be more forward thinking, I've restructured our internal team to support those sales efforts, we (as a team) attacked the marketplace in the UK and abroad to get people to 'know' us and together we held it all together through a global pandemic. Throughout the world going absolutely bonkers and baptising myself into the fires of managing a company in the most stressful way possible, we continued to market ourselves in the 'right' way by trying to change the opinion of our company so that people took notice - being fun in our approach but also engaging with our audience and clients in a way that we didn't before - but was it enough?
I say that this is a big spanner in the works as with everything, there needs to be an element of success to prove that the process and journey that you're on is worth it, you wouldn't continue on that diet if you didn't see the weight falling off and you wouldn't continue to pay that Netflix subscription if you didn't get to know who won the money on Squid Game - I now feel like it's time to show that we're on the right journey and we've captured the momentum in the right way and it's time to showcase the success behind the work we've been doing.
💎 The Mantra for 2022
With all of that overarching pressure and the thought of 'Am I doing enough?' ringing in my ears, 2022 has got to be 'that time' - which is why my mantra for 2022 is 'Am I doing enough?'.
Before it turns all macho and toxic - 'Am I doing enough?' can be both positive and negative - for example, if you actually are doing enough then you can't be told you haven't put in enough effort.
I remember being at school and the biggest hack I learned back then was that even if I didn't hit my grades (which I didn't in science but that's a story about forgetting a calculator and then not having the balls to ask for one in an exam) if I put in enough effort then my parents would be happy - they didn't actually care about the achievement grade in the right hand column of my report, it was all about the effort score in the left hand column - If I hit A or B in that column, it didn't matter about the achievement because I was at the natural ceiling of success at that time.
Translate this to business and if you put in enough effort, if you show up every day and you're working your nuts off to make a success of your business then one day, just one day - you're going to get that reward.
The problem with that is all those other commitments and dreams - they get in the way but they're so much bloody fun. 🛹
Anyway, thanks for reading - If you feel the same or you want to let me know what your mantra for 2022 is, drop it in the comments and if you've got any resources, videos or articles which challenge this view - let me know.
Catch you in two weeks - Matt 🤙🏻
Things I Think You'll Like -
📹 Podcast - High Performance Podcast - Alistair Campbell - I recently listened to this podcast in my car on the way to pick my son up for the Christmas break and Alistair has doubted himself, struggled with his mental health and is also the metaphorical dartboard for the Tony Blair era of government but his reflection on success and what you need to succeed at the highest level was intriguing.
📀 Song - Handwritten - Gaslight Anthem - I watched 'A Star is Born' the other day (Christmas Telly) and it's so good but that devilishly good looking lead - Bradley Cooper - reminded me of the lead singer (how he sounds, not how he looks) of the Gaslight Anthem (Brian Fallon). I'd recommend listening to this song or 'National Anthem' on the same album.
📕 Office Thing - Sigel A4 Notepad - I have used these notebooks for the last 4 years, I wouldn't use anything else when it comes to making notes or arranging my office life. They don't go dog-eared, they hold my pen and in all honesty, I love them. Just about to start my 2022 'to-do' list and I always miss out the first page (does anyone write on the first page?)
Things I'm Looking Forward To -
🎥 Course - Casey Neistats Filmmaking Course - After attempting to complete 50 vlogs in 50 days and only completing 12 vlogs in 15 days, I made the leap to try and improve my output. I love Casey's style and whilst I was in the USA, he announced he was creating a course to boost storytelling in video and I made the leap - if you fancy joining me, use the link above and you'll get $20 off the price and you'll be in my classroom. (Course starts on the 11th Jan)
💭 Free Course - You Are The Media Learning - Events - 2021 was a great year for the learning side of You Are the Media and we return on 27th January with an hour long session on putting on events - in person or online - given the escapade we experienced with the final YATM event of 2021 (there was a power cut - check it out here.) this should be a session full of learning.