There’s nothing that can’t be done when you have enough leverage.
The opposite is also true:
There’s nothing that can be done when you lack the leverage to produce movement.
Leverage comes in many forms.
When we talk about moving a physical object, it can literally be a lever – something we wedge underneath it and push on in order to reduce the amount of effort it takes to make things happen.
But not all leverage is physical.
Levers can be mental. Psychological. Conceptual. Behavioural.
Although we can’t hold these levers in our hands, they’re no less impactful than the muscle-sparing variety.
When we’re faced with a challenge we’re struggling to overcome, it’s easy to think that the solution lies in working harder.
Put in more time. Care more. Push further. Want it more desperately.
These things can help. More effort often leads to more progress.
But is it necessary?
What if we’re making things harder than they need to be by using the wrong tools for the job?
Are we attempting to roll a boulder uphill when we could just stick it in the elevator instead?
Are we trying to muscle our way through using grit and willpower, when simple behavioural changes would make that easier (or entirely unnecessary)?
Are we perceiving things in a manner that creates stress rather than alleviating it?
Simple questions. But when they’re properly applied, their answers might just reveal something about our approach that we’d rather not acknowledge.
When we’re in the middle of our huffing & puffing – or some ways down the road, having done this for a long time – we don’t always want to hear that we’ve been doing it all wrong.
Our ego prevents us from seeing a different way of doing things.
To our ego, it’s easier to continue on the path of strife than to acknowledge we’ve taken a wrong turn.
We’d rather curse our circumstances and how difficult things are than realise better leverage is out there.
So, if we feel like we’re stuck in a rut…
Like the tasks placed before us are a cruel burden we can’t escape…
It’s probably worth checking our assumptions before we give up.
There are more tools available to us than our own two hands & whatever limited resources we’ve allowed to dominate our awareness.
There’s a whole world of leverage out there, just waiting to be put to use.
In the pursuit of things we care about, there are no prizes for flaming out early. For burning ourselves out, or for working to complete exhaustion.
The only rewards are the things we care about.
The destination, yes. And the process that takes us there (if we’re lucky).
Everything else is up for debate.