What to Do When It’s Not Working Out
From countless encounters with failure, I can tell you that not everything works out the way you hope it will. If you keep trying, you’ll get where you want to go in the end, but there will undoubtedly be many stops along the way where you encounter a dead-end.
First, how do you know when it’s not working out?
Here are a few signs:
- You approach the project with neither excitement nor dread. You just don’t care.
- If it’s a group project, discussions and planning become circular. People say the same things they said last time, and the time before that. There is plenty of conflict, but little resolution.
- You feed off crisis. The crisis drowns out everything else. When you have no crisis, you invent one or just wait for another to arrive.
- Most importantly, NOTHING EVER CHANGES. This kind of thing doesn’t usually get better on its own.
That’s pretty much how you know it’s not working out. So what do you do? The good news is that your options are limited. Specifically, you have only three:
1) Do Nothing
2) Quit
3) Change Something Major
Option #1: Do Nothing
Doing nothing is the most common response when confronting apathy. You suck it up and live with it. You keep going through the motions, dutifully showing up without actually doing much. You attend the meetings, wondering more about what kind of cookies will be waiting on the table than what will be on the agenda.
The agenda? Speaking of that, there may be a written one somewhere, but there is no driving force. Remember, it doesn’t usually get better on its own.
Effectively, you stop all pretense of caring what happens. When I worked in Africa, we used to call this “checking out.” Someone would be coming to the end of a long time in a difficult job, for example, and they had lost their motivation. They had “checked out.”
“Can we ask Steve to do this?”
“He’s checked out.”
“Oh.”
Time to move on to the next guy, because when someone checks out, it’s hard to get them back. If you’re the one who has checked out, see the next two options.
Option #2: Quit
When you quit, you walk away as quickly as possible, consequences be damned. You’re in the wrong job, on the wrong team, working on the wrong project, pursuing the wrong goal. Or maybe you’re what’s wrong – but either way, you can quit.
If you start to feel guilty about it, or if someone questions you, you can give the age-old response: “Lots of other people are doing this too.” This response seemingly justifies any bad behavior, from smoking to discrimination or anything else.
But sometimes, option #2 may be your only choice, if for no other reason than to retain your sanity. When it comes down to that, I think hanging on to sanity is worth whatever guilt you feel for quitting. And if you were the problem to begin with, well, maybe things will be better for everyone else after you leave. You never know.
Option #3: Change Something Big
If you can’t stand the status quo and don’t want to give up, this leaves only one option: something must change. It has to be something significant; even outsiders should be able to look and say, hey, this is different.
Change is the lifeblood of innovation and the salvation of complacency, but beware: no one really likes change, and that’s why it can hard to introduce something that is significantly different after apathy has set in.
It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, however.
What can you change? Ideas include:
- The reason why you do this thing to begin with
- The way in which the goal is measured
- The group leader (if this is an independent project, see Option #2)
- The format of the meetings
- The responsibilities of everyone who is involved
Apathy is easy to diagnose but hard to treat, so there is no guarantee that Option #3 will work. For guarantees, do something easier.
###
Image: SladeGibbs
37 Comments
Great post, Chris! I’ve experienced this many times over my lifetime. Most currently is with my career. Due to the economy and 5 mouths to feed, I’ve “done nothing” as far a work, but have made major changes part time. I like to think about it as a “duck on water” where above the water I’m calm, cool, and collected, but under the water I’m kicking like there’s no tomorrow!
I have to add that some of these symptoms and signs also apply to relationships….When you come to the realization that you just don’t care, that the effort far outweighs any value, it’s time to move on. The circular reference holds true as well….if you are not growing in or with a relationship, then it is dead or drawing your last breath.
“accept the things I cannot change,the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”
therein lies the challenge.
Namaste~
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When the answer to “Why is this being done this way?” is ‘It’s always been done thit way’ then “It is time to change it immediately.”
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it’s a group project, discussions and planning become circular. People say the same things they said last time, and the time before that. There is plenty of conflict, but little resolution.
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