How To Stop Wasting Your Life And Chop Down That Tree
“If I only had an hour to chop down a tree, I would spend the first 45 minutes sharpening my axe.” – Abraham Lincoln
I remember what seems to me like a lifetime ago, when I was trying to start my first side business. I spent months working on it. At my regular job, during breaks, I would take out my laptop and work on it. When I came home from work, besides eating and working out, the only thing that I was doing was working on it.
But I couldn’t get myself to officially launch the business.
I was making sure that the product design was just as I imagined. I was fine-tuning how the website looked so that the customer experience was the best that it could be. I was on my 4th or 5th version of the "About Us" page because I wanted to make sure that people understood that we cared about more than just selling our product - that there was a message that we wanted to spread.
Then, on one of the rare nights when I took some of my time to hang out with my friends, one of them asked me how things were going and when I expected to officially launch the business and start with sales.
"You know that quote, I think it’s from Abraham Lincoln, about sharpening the axe? If I had four hours to chop down a tree, I would spend the first three hours sharpening my axe, or something like that. Well, right now I’m still sharpening my axe. I want to make sure that everything is on point with both the product and the website so that once I start with sales, it’s all sharp and there are no mistakes. " That was my answer.
And as I was saying that, I realized how full of crap I am.
I honestly wasn’t aware of what I was doing up to that moment. But when I said that to him, I suddenly got this strange, uncomfortable feeling in my stomach.
"Oh, so this is what is actually going on. "
I was scared. No, I was terrified to actually start.
I was too afraid to finally do the thing that I wanted, but I also didn’t want to admit that I was too afraid and just give up. So I found my happy medium in preparation. Endless preparation. Fear and hesitation disguised as perfectionism.
Do you know what happens to a blade when you sharpen it too much?
If you sharpen it any more than necessary, even if the blade is made from the highest quality steel, you are wearing it down. Once the blade is sharp enough, but you keep sharpening, you are just making it weaker. But it’s not just that you end up with a weak blade; you also never get a sharp blade. If, even after creating a "wire edge," which is what you want, you still keep sharpening, the edge of the blade ends up getting rounded over. So then you keep sharpening, and you are caught in this loop where the blade never gets sharp enough.
Well, it’s no different with a human being. After a certain point, and in most cases that point comes sooner than most people think, preparation, or sharpening, is only hurting you.
I would compare the strength of the blade to your enthusiasm and determination to take action. You know that these two are at their highest when you first get the idea that you want to try something. But the longer you wait, the more time you spend on unnecessary preparation, the weaker your determination and enthusiasm become.
And I would compare the sharpness of the blade to your confidence. Of course, you need some preparation. Just like the right amount of sharpening makes a blade cut better, the right amount of preparation gives you the confidence that you are actually able to do that thing. But just like when you keep sharpening, the sharp edge gets rounded, so you keep sharpening and never get to a sharp blade, when you keep preparing more than necessary, you lose confidence in your abilities because there is always something that you could be better at. So you think that the solution to being fully confident is to keep preparing. But the longer you prepare, the more things you notice that you could be better at. The longer you prepare, the more reasons there are for preparation. You never become fully ready, you only become less confident.
I’ve experienced this myself, and more than once. At some point, I finally decided to launch my business and start with sales. Somehow, I mustered up the courage to do it. But the thing is, by the time I was finally ready to take that step, my enthusiasm and determination were almost non-existent. Too much time has passed in preparation. I was tired. And my confidence was at its all-time low. By being stuck in the never-ending loop of preparation, I was only realizing how much more there is for me to learn, how much I don’t know, and how unprepared I am even after all of that preparation.
I failed. I’m not sure if the excessive preparation was the only reason for that, but I can tell you that I exhausted and weakened myself with preparation so much that, once I failed, I was relieved.
"But how much sharpening is enough for a blade to be sharp? You talk about preparing more than necessary, but what is the right amount of preparation?"
I have no idea. Does anyone even know that? Is there a universal, one-size-fits-all answer to that question?
I don’t know if there is such a thing as a blade that’s been sharpened to perfection, but I do know that there is no human being that is 100% ready.
You are never fully prepared. You are never at a point where you are perfect. You are never prepared so well that there is no chance of failure.
If you accept that, then "the right amount" of preparation is at any point when you decide to take that step forward, when you decide to strike with your blade.
And, instead of sharpening your blade so that you can chop down a whole tree, how about you sharpen it just enough so that you can chop down a branch? Then chop down another branch. As you gain momentum, your confidence keeps growing. At some point, you stop to sharpen the blade just enough to start cutting through bigger branches. Now you can see some progress. The whole tree looks less intimidating, and you are way more confident in your blade than you were when you started. You keep chopping. Eventually, you will find yourself with a blade in your hand and a sense of pride in your heart, standing beside a chopped down tree.
Thank you for reading.
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