Too much of what we do is high stakes. Fire fighting. Focus on end goals and not process. Your average day might feel really busy doing all the things as fast as possible but at the end of the day you might not be able to quantify what you actually did.
Because of the pace we try to work and the endless and renewing things to do we rarely carve out time to experiment or tinker. We don’t spend time learning and honing. We spend so much of our time thinking everything is urgent and trying to get it all done at once that we rarely get the chance to play around when the stakes are low. This is why months or years can go by where we feel like we haven’t really made progress.
I believe this is a big part of why we can’t get good work done or become experts at what we do. Our focus is on decreasing the pressure of the moment and not on learning new and better ways of doing our jobs or passions more effectively.
I used to tinker with my rowing all the time. I’ve written about this before. I’d go out for an afternoon paddle with no particular focus other than messing around. I wasn’t trying to gain fitness or get a personal best. I was focused on playing around with my technique and all of the subtle nuanced components that go into making a great rowing stroke. And the key was they it was low to no stakes.
There was no coach. No timer. No buoys drifting pass in my peripheral. It was the perfect environment to develop my fine motor skills and tune in to the essence of what I was doing. I wasn’t thinking about what it would get me, rather how it felt. If I took a bad stoke who cared. The world melted away and it was just me and my boat behind Roosevelt Island. When I think back on my rowing these are some of my fondest memories and also some of the most stimulating. We can feel more, discern more, absorb more when the pressure is off.
Because of this focus on low stakes experimentation I was able to make so many discoveries. I could take risks that would help me refine the way that I thought about and executed my rowing instead of focusing myopically on winning a piece or going as fast as possible. I’d play around with my grip, with pressure and power changes, with balance, and mostly with getting to know myself and my craft. I have always felt that exceptional rowing is mastering the connection between mind, body, equipment, and the elements. It’s easy to sit in a boat and take for granted your connection to it.
But how often do we neglect tinkering in pursuit of instant gratification? Or how often do we try to win versus trying to learn? I would argue that the joys of discovery last far longer than the joys of winning and have more impact over time. Winning gives us a false sense of mastery when maybe we just got lucky or someone had a bad day. I’ve learned far more from failing and trying again than I have from most of my wins. And I have almost always learned more from messing around than I have from pulling hard.
So why is it so hard to prioritize tinkering and spending time learning when the stakes are low? Because it’s the definition of long term thinking, which is something our culture is terrible at prioritizing. We want the report now. The hire now. The money now. The glory now. Everything we are told and bombarded with every day is focused on the short term. It’s why people earn money and spend it all and then have no savings for retirement. Taking an hour every day to do something focused on the long term feels like a huge sacrifice. We go fast to go fast. So slowing down to go faster seems like an oxymoron.
Now I’m not blaming people. It’s hard to make the decision to prioritize your long term growth and success. We succumb to pressure because we’re human and we want to do it all. But we are missing the chance for growth and discovery by only doing the immediate, in your face, right here right now.
Whatever you do, whatever you’re trying to achieve, whoever you are trying to be, is it possible to prioritize some of your precious time on tinkering, experimenting, and playing? Even five minutes a day could mean the difference between doing what you’ve always done or achieving greatness.
What do you think?
