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Hi David!
Hmm, excellent question. This is going to be a weird one so bear with me. It won't sound like it's about development but it actually is.
For a long time I held on to relationships in my life that weren't the best thing for me. They were friendships that I had had for a long time, and I think when they started out, they were great! But over time they eroded. I was friends with people who were, at times, not very supportive of my career or my interests, and I made a lot of excuses for why I continued investing in them.
Finally, one day, I wrote down a list of all of the places I was putting my energy, and what I was getting in return. What I discovered from this exercise was that I was putting an uneven amount of investment in some people and projects that weren't investing back in me. I also found that there were a whole slew of opportunities that I was passing up! There were a bunch of relationships/efforts that were much more balanced and had far more even quantities of respect and growth.
I tried something. I tried investing in the things that were more equally weighted. I reduced the energy of the things that weren't.
My career turned into a rocket ship. I went from dreaming about all the projects I could make and all the conferences I could speak at to actually doing these things.
I don't mean to oversimplify this because life is really not that simple and you can't follow someone else's map. But for me personally, I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to do this exercise sooner. That the pain of letting something go is sometimes greater than trying to hold on to something that isn't right for you. Energy is finite, and we should be respectful of our own time. It gives proper weight to the people and projects that do deserve it.