(And a Better Leader)
I remember getting captured by the wisdom of “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” Richard Carlson popularized the phrase suggesting that it’s all relatively small stuff we face in our daily lives. It seemed like good advice to avoid creating unnecessary and avoidable stress. You will know when the stress is really warranted. The thing is, as a leader, your role entails dealing with tough choices that impact the lives of others, often in significant ways. The stress is not only inevitable, but it turns out that it’s useful. At the very least, the stress from the latent dissatisfaction drives you to persistently strive for better. Plus, if you’re doing your job well, your responsibility is to deal with the big things – and delegate all those small things to others. And, when you are not confident in those you delegate to, you find yourself sometimes sweating the small stuff.
Carlson is right. We shouldn’t sweat the small things. We should know that those we rely upon will be diligent and conscientious in accomplishing whatever it is they are supposed to. It’s why you hire them in the first place. Worrying about how others might perform is the leading cause of micromanagement — and ultimately unhappiness for everyone involved. Competence as a leader begins with making sure this is not the status quo. Your job is to ensure that people are, in fact, capable and competent: meaning that they are equipped and prepared to do the job and have a sense of duty around accomplishing whatever it is that they charged with, big or small.
Happiness is a finicky thing. Often the things you think will make you happy don’t.
Happiness is a finicky thing. Often the things you think will make you happy don’t. And doing things that are not pleasant or enjoyable bring you great happiness. The problem with happiness is that it is not a state of being; it is a decision. You choose to be happy or not. And your choice is entirely derived from the meaning you make of a given situation. Happiness is not just subjective. It is situational, meaning some things make you happy sometimes and not others. For example, sitting still on a beach while watching an inspiring sunset might make you happy, while sitting still in fully stopped traffic, especially when you need to be where you are going, is more likely to frustrate you. Again, it’s all in the meaning you construct. I know plenty of people who are unhappy to sit still for just about anything, and others who find sitting in traffic gives them time to think. I can recall even enjoying the fact that I would miss a meeting I was anticipating would be a waste of time and spent two hours listening to an audiobook instead.
The key to dealing with the small stuff is more about understanding the difference between happiness and joy.
While happiness tends to be relative and often fleeting, joy relates to something more reliable and durable. Joy is connected to satisfaction and is a deeper human emotion. To illustrate this point, you can be happy as a spectator at your favorite sport – or whatever form of entertainment you enjoy watching. But watching your child play that sport brings you a sense of joy – perhaps the same joy as those on the field playing. Joy is the satisfaction of accomplishing things that feel worthwhile. Taking it one step further, people who play a recreational sport because it is fun and makes them happy rarely if ever, perform at the same level as those who dedicate themselves to playing at the highest level possible. Professional athletes may have fun, but they are also highly competitive and spend a lot of time not having fun to attain a level of competence where they experience tremendous satisfaction in what they accomplish. This accomplishment is what brings them joy.
The way to have a life filled with joy is to focus your attention and actions on accomplishing meaningful and worthwhile things. Small accomplishments that only you notice are often as or even more significant as those that win you the praise of others. The appreciation you receive from others is never as satisfying as appreciating your own achievements. Think about how many people are miserable or worse because they cannot or do not appreciate their own efforts despite all the accolades from others. People who fail to find satisfaction in their accomplishments find very little joy in life.
High achievers who accomplish a great deal in life tend to be those who accomplish many small things.
High achievers who accomplish a great deal in life tend to be those who accomplish many small things. It is how they approach the larger challenges they undertake. It’s like winning a war, which results from winning many battles, and often winning small but critical battles makes winning the larger ones possible. We celebrate the final victory with grand parades, while the small victories give great satisfaction to those who fought them.
The same is true for living a life filled with joy. When you discover that there is something small and meaningful you can accomplish at any moment in any day, you can begin to string those moments together. The satisfaction has latency, and the joy you experience in life tends to be a self-fulfilling exercise: the more you find joy in more of life’s moments, the more you look for ways to do good and contribute.
Think about the things you come across on any given day. Do you move a shopping cart from the middle of a parking lot? Do you pick up litter that someone has carelessly left behind? You can open doors for people, help carry their loads or simply acknowledge people that seem lonely or distressed. There is no limit on the things you can do to contribute value to the lives of others. Every act of contribution is a small accomplishment and a potential source of satisfaction and joy. You can accomplish tremendous things by just caring and using your empathy to find moments of joy. And when you begin to realize the power of caring – you find there is a potential for experiencing moments of overwhelming joy (MoJo) that you stumble across by making a habit of purposefully living your life in pursuit of making a valuable contribution.
The significance of what you accomplish is the measure of exceptional leadership.
Competent leadership is a source of deep satisfaction and joy. And l your ability to develop others who can also become competent leaders is a force multiplier for this joy. Moreover, anything you do that inhibits others from accomplishing whatever their potential suggests they should, or might is the equivalent of robbing them of that joy. You can cultivate MoJo by challenging people to perform their best and challenging the limitations that keep them from realizing their full potential. If your goal is to make people happy, you will never equip them with what it takes to find joy. But make it your duty to develop the leadership potential in others. You will increase your level of personal satisfaction to a degree you might not have thought possible – while moving your organization and the world in a good direction.
