Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Tag: obstacles

  • Listen In -> Lies and Myths We Believe About Work #1: How We Cooperate In Our Own Diminishment

    More frustrating than almost any other professional obstacle are the obstacles we create for ourselves. This week Claudia and I begin a new podcast discussion series looking at several common “truths” of working life and discuss how they are, in fact, LIES.

    Not only are they lies, but we end up sabotaging our own professional well-being by acting as if they were true.

    I wrote about these lies in a recent Loving Monday column. (Read “Empowered by Identifying the Lies” here.) So insidious and persistent is the extent to which we have bought into these lies that we thought it warranted a full discussion series.

    What is most troubling about these lies is that we participate in our own diminishment by believing them. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

    We obey an entire set of unspoken rules without anyone asking us to, without any job description delineating them, and without any policy demanding that we do.

    Lies and Myths We Believe About Work

    Week #1: How We Cooperate In Our Own Diminishment
    Week #2: You Don’t Have What It Takes
    Week #3: You Have to Prove Yourself First
    Week #4: Hard Work Will Be Rewarded
    Week #5: Making Waves is Making Trouble

    Which of these lies do you find most persuasive? Join the conversation.

    Listen in.

  • Quote to Consider: Turning Obstacles Into Propellers

    quote-to-consider“He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.”

    Henry David Thoreau

  • Two Keys to Perseverance

    Perseverance is not always a matter of mustering sheer will power.

    While determination on our part is crucial, we come up against obstacles, opposition, and constraints that hold us back, sabotage our efforts and attack our spirit. What once felt like an indomitable fount of energy, creativity and genius slowly crumbles beneath us even as we scramble for higher ground.

    I‘ve been learning that perseverance requires tactical preparedness, as well as inner strengthening.

    More than sheer commitment to our own project or dream, we need to be aware and savvy about the people and forces that work against us. We have to including contingencies in our planning to account for opposition, and initiatives to head off anything we can anticipate in the way of trouble.

    There is no room for naive idealism. To deny the reality of difficulties is to participate in one’s own defeat.

    We also need an inexhaustible spirit and strength of character. Such inner resources don’t appear from nowhere. Two lifelong tasks to this end are: 1.) digging a deep well of resources that restore, refresh and renew you, and 2.) learning to draw on those resources when needed.

    Which is your stronger suit when mustering the determination to push forward in spite of all that would hold you back? Do you lean on your sound planning or your inner tenacity? What might we learn from your success in persevering?