Growth, Order and Chaos

Sometime over the last few months, I heard a podcast which said the following:

If the challenge is greater than the capability, it is demotivating.

If the challenge is less than the capability, it is boring.

To be motivated, the challenge should be slightly more than the capability. This leads to figuring it out, learning and growing.

In the book, 12 rules for life, Jordan Peterson talks about order and chaos in the form of the famous yin and yang Chinese symbol.

One side is order and the other is chaos. 

Too much order and nothing grows. 

Too much chaos and it is overwhelming and no growth.

The middle curved line is the balance between order and chaos which leads to growth.

2 different ways to understand and express how to achieve growth.

We should be planning our goals, tasks, to be on this middle line in multiple aspects of life.

Mediocre to great

 

Levels of living life are usually classified as survival, mediocre and great.

I believe, in reality, there is a huge amount of people in the zone between mediocre and great.

So, what is this area all about?

In survival, you have no discipline and no success.

In mediocre, you have discipline and control over some things.

In great, you have discipline and success in most of the areas of life.

The yellow area in between is where you have a good discipline in some areas but do not have discipline in the other areas which is not giving the compounding effect for the areas you are disciplined to make your life great.

Let me give you an example. You are great at saving money and investing. But you smoke heavily causing you ill health and making you spend a lot on Healthcare, thereby reducing your financial success instead of allowing it to further grow.

To live a great life, several things matter: mindset, what you focus on, what you learn and improve, earning well, investing, health, spouses mindsets and habits, spending habits, friends, networks, time management, vision, motivation, etc.

To move from mediocre to great requires one to master and discipline from a minority of things to the majority of the things and that is where the real struggle and effort is.