As you wander through the maze of your career, you may find yourself standing at the edge of a seemingly unpassable obstacle. As you stare in disbelief at what seems impossible, remember how you got here in the first place. You put in the effort, developed a process, designed a feature, or gained some credentials. Whatever it may have been, you ultimately sized up the obstacle, planned your approach, and took the initiative to overcome it. This tenacity is part of our core programming as humans; when presented with an enigma, our capacity to reason about it and problem solve is part of what makes us unique on this earth.
As you settle further into your comfort zone, you may find that your drive to overcome settles too. You may feel ambivalent in your norm; we are creatures of habit, after all. I find that this is the best time to push through your complacency, push the boundaries of what you are comfortable with, and begin to embark on whatever may be next. This could be work-related, finding a new hobby, learning about emerging technology, anything that reaches outside of that warm fuzzy comfort zone and pushes you to explore and learn something new.
I think back to my last post, Craftpeople or Handypeople? and reflect on my journey a bit. I’ve always been of the mind that there must be multiple ways to solve a given challenge. I can’t say that I have always chosen the “right” way, but generally, I tend to dig in and find an acceptable manner. Your ability to problem-solve builds over time, and as your toolset grows, you find many different ways to approach a given challenge.
Something that I have also noticed in my journey through this life has been that seemingly unrelated experiences build and grow your overall ability to advance and overcome obstacles. Almost as if there is an underlying fundamental aspect that is common throughout seemingly unrelated encounters. At the core of my rambling, I feel that it is important never to become complacent, always push to explore new things, learn new processes and practices, and ultimately advance your path. You never know how this web of knowledge may wind through your life and become a platform from which to overcome the next hurdle in front of you.