Hi worklifers,
Hope you are all keeping well. I am back after taking a short break. It has been humbling to have so many of you to be along the journey for worklifeunstuck. It has been a little over a year since worklifeunstuck was founded, and our one-year anniversary for the newsletter is also coming up in about a month. This year, I have so much more in store for all of you in terms of keeping up high quality coaching content and new frameworks to help you get unstuck across work and life situations. I am also excited about the book I have started to work on which will include self-coaching lessons and journals and go in depth around the concepts I coach on in the 12- week program. I cannot wait to share more about it in the coming months.
We started this year on rising to our systems and using them as vehicles to achieve your goals. Once you have laid the foundation and understand the concepts, this newsletter is the next step on how to build a mindset and take concrete steps towards making projects possible. I like to think of projects as mini peaks mapped to your goals. They can start and complete within a shorter timeframe typically between 1-3 months. These projects when well planned and executed with the right mindset can create transformational results. Let us dive into it what make projects possible.
Over the holidays, I watched a Netflix documentary called 14 Peaks. Nims Purja’s goal of climbing 14 of the world’s highest mountains in six months was unprecedented. Many believed it simply wasn’t possible. Nims disagreed,and set out to prove to a generation that we as humans are capable of so much more than we think we are. This inspired the name of his mission: Project Possible.
There were so many leadership and life lessons that packed into this taut documentary. I came away feeling inspired, motivated, committed, and determined. As Nims says, "I just want people anywhere from the world to see this and see the vision. I'm a village boy, born on a farm… This isn't just my project. This is for everybody."
We all carry limiting beliefs to some extent, and often we assume that motivation and inspiration are things that just happen to us. We wait patiently for external circumstances to align and create the perfect conditions for us to achieve our goals. We tell ourselves the lies that we will be able to conquer our metaphorical peaks only when the stars align. Nims’ story reminds us that we have so much more agency than we think, and that our minds can give us power when we face difficult situations outside our control. For Nims, that situation was his time in the “death zone”: the area on a mountain where there is so little oxygen that no human can survive there for an extended period of time.
“In the death zone, I come alive,” Nims says when asked about how he tackles the harsh conditions. He says that his soul becomes a part of the mountain. Climbing a peak so treacherous can put you in a state of meditation. You are far away from all the perceptions and opinions of others. You are free to make your own path, following your own instincts. You start discovering new things about yourself. There is an intimate relationship that develops between you and the pain you endure. It becomes a part of you. That’s when you have the ability to blaze new trails, inspire others, and break the barriers that limit you from scaling your peaks.
Agency comes down to our mental and physical capacity to take action despite our circumstances. When the odds are against us, no one can tell us what to believe and feel. We get to decide how we respond. That is our agency, and it is a powerful thing.
So, how do we tap into this agency when we set out to conquer our own peaks? Today we will examine why our peaks so often feel impossible to overcome, and how to make scaling them possible.
When do projects (peaks) seem impossible
To begin, it is important to understand when and why projects feel impossible to us, and when and why we feel that we lack agency. Let us take some simple examples across work and life to explore what keeps us from taking control.
Consider the challenge of cleaning out and organizing your garage. This undertaking often seems like an impossible peak for a single person to take on. The reason for this is simple: we do not understand what the process actually entails, and this scares us. How do we organize the different items? How do we decide what to keep and what to throw away? How long will it take? We are afraid of stepping into that messy world. We know we need to create a lasting system to organize our stuff, one that accounts for many different factors, but we don’t know where to begin.
Now let’s extend the same analogy to software and tech projects. As a product and engineering leader, I may think of re-architecting a service with millions of users as an impossible task. I worry what will happen if I change the established service and cause an impact on current usage. So many people depend on this product. I do not understand all of it, and I don't want to be the one to make this decision because I don’t want to mess it up. This illustrates another common fear: the fear that we lack jurisdiction or authority. In the garage example, I worry because I don't own all the items stored in the garage—the wires, the gardening tools, the sports gear, the books, the shoes. I can decide what I should get rid of for myself, but I don't own that decision for other members of my household. I want to act, to do the right thing, but I resist out of respect for, or fear of, another person. The same goes for the software service. I don’t have ownership of some of the subcomponents that make up the service, so I feel that I lack the mastery needed to make wide-reaching changes.
These examples demonstrate how our fear and lack of jurisdiction keep us from tackling those peaks. The next question becomes, how do we overcome these feelings?
How to conquer peaks and make projects possible
If you ask Nims how he was able to summit peak after peak through horrific weather, on little to no sleep, his response is simple: mindset. It is about maintaining that mindset, and about making decisions. He says the reason he has been successful is because of the decisions he made in the belief that he could make the impossible possible. He compares climbing to swimming, and says that if someone is drowning, the first thing they will do is try to grab whoever is closest. The same pattern, Nims claims, exists in the death zone. For Nims, however, "It's just about sticking to a survival plan. It is about not getting phased out and seeing the big picture."
Daniel Pink explores a similar concept in his book, Drive. When you have a purpose, you are able to build mastery and autonomy. Purpose is the knowledge that what you are doing is meaningful. Mastery is the feeling that you are constantly getting better at things that matter. Autonomy is the ability to be self-directed and secure in your decisions. All of these contribute to cultivating the belief that a project is possible, against all odds.
So, what does this look like in practice? Let’s return to the above examples. When taking on projects like cleaning your garage or re-architecting a service, you need to start with the big picture. What’s your purpose? Why is what you’re doing meaningful? Once that purpose is clear, then you can work to create autonomy. This may mean giving yourself permission to be self-directed, even though you may not own all of the decisions. You can continue to keep the big picture in mind,
and make good decisions for yourself and others who depend on you. Summiting these peaks, of course, also requires gaining mastery. This could mean taking time to learn some of the necessary skills, gathering enough information to delegate, or hiring and loaning people who can accomplish specific tasks.
Remember, when the big picture is clear, and you have a strategy to follow, it’s critical to stick to it. This means focusing on the "why". Remembering your purpose is at the heart of this process. Always be asking yourself why you’re doing this. What do you anchor yourself to when you’re in the death zone? What possibilities are you willing to create when the odds are against you in order to achieve your goal? If you can hold onto your purpose, then you can make your projects possible—even when they feel impossible.
Below I have included a guide to using a “Project Possible” mindset to climb your own peaks. You can use this template for any project or challenge you tackle. I hope you enjoy it.
30-day Project Possible template
To start off, pick a goal that you can accomplish in 30 days, whether it’s something you want to create or a project you want to complete.
It might be a new house project, a work project, losing weight, cutting down on drinking or screen time, completing a painting, reading ten books, or simply following your schedule for 30 days straight.