Be Proactive

11Aug08

I haven’t been posting much. It annoys me. Simultaneously, it annoys me that it can even affect how I feel. I’ve actually been writing a ton, but I haven’t been happy with the end results. My Drafts folder is getting filled up.

Thinking about it, I figured out my problem.

As my last substantive post suggests (still stinging from Favre), I’m still in the midst of a full move into an apartment. Work has been really rewarding, but also doubly maddening. My social life is fair, though I’m usually too exhausted to really try to be too adventurous.

So what’s the issue?

I’ve wrote before about how I felt dependent upon other people for my success, how I was waiting for my big break. And then I resolved that I had to make it happen myself.

Now? Things are going really well in just about every facet of my career and life right now, but I still get the nagging feeling that they can be much, much better. Anything that comes my way, I feel like I’m absolutely killing. Sure, I’m pretty satisfied with that, but there’s obviously a problem.

I’ve become entirely reactive.

Everyone is now fairly familiar with Google’s infamous 20% side project rule. Gmail, Adsense, Google News (which kind of blows, sorry) were all created this way, among other Labs graduates. They’ve institutionalized the idea of innovation among their workforce, while still juggling whatever the hell it is that keeps them busy in Mountainview.

Entering the workforce with an obsession for success (like I have), it’s good to remind yourself not to rest on your laurels. Things are looking up, but I haven’t been reading, innovating, thinking enough. It’s easy to say that I don’t have enough time with everything else on my plate, but I’ve got to make time. Force your reputation resume to proceed you. It’s easy to chalk things up to inexperience, but there’s a big difference between the intern that’s working for resume-building and the wunderkind that brings real success. A big difference between a recommendation that reads that you were a good student and the one that says you were an absolute prodigy.

The distinction between the two is substantive, but the means of getting there is minute. It just takes a concerted obsession with constantly innovating yourself and your strategies. If all of your advancement and success is dependent upon the beck, call and adulation of someone else, you might be lauded, but you won’t be the master of your own success.

Don’t be reactive. Be proactive.

It worked for her, after all.

Filed under: Tacked On The Wall   |  4 Comments
Tags: blogging, brett favre, dependency, google, problems, reputation resume, wunderkind