I was recently going through old pictures in an effort to find a better way to store all the pre-phone images taken dating back to the 1960s when I was a child. Barb and I had fun seeing “old” pictures of our daughters dating from 1988 through their high school years. It’s amazing how much the granddaughters look like both of them!
I came across a picture of me as a 17 year old playing golf for the high school team. I was stunned to see how much my swing looks different today in one key place – flexibility.
As a 17 year old, I had the classic “Reverse C” in my spine; as a 57 year old, not so much. With age comes less flexibility. While I do try to exercise in ways to maintain it, it’s part of life to lose some as we age.
That’s not the only flexibility we lose as we “mature.”
If you’re like me, it was much easier to “go with the flow” as a kid. For some reason, being able to change plans or behaviors was much easier back then. Routine wasn’t an issue. But as we got older and worked our ways through family, career, and other things in life, our flexibility decreased.
And that works against us…
In an ever more volatile and rapidly changing world we live in, flexibility is a necessity for success and happiness. I constantly observe in all walks of life, adults decrying change. Sometimes they admit that they are like the proverbial “old dog” not able to learn new tricks. I’ve had old dogs that learned a lot throughout their life and could be taught a myriad of things, so let’s debunk that!
More ambiguous is when we hear the dismissal of something new, like say the social media platform, TikTok. It’s not uncommon to hear business people scoff at it saying it’s just for young people and that it’s a waste of time; that there’s no business to be done on it. “You won’t find me on TikTok,” is a common refrain.
I’m not here to be an advocate of TikTok. It’s simply an example of what I heard over the last decade about first YouTube, then Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (in addition to other platforms). Funny that many of the same people are ubiquitous on these other forms of media.
Inflexibility is an issue when we are rigid and dodge changing our habits because we are comfortable. “Comfort” is our enemy.
Inflexibility is an issue when we say we want to improve behaviors and/or skills, but don’t because we stubbornly cling to routine. “Stubbornness” is our enemy.
And inflexibility is an issue when our first response to something new is to dismiss it because we don’t know enough about it. I think that’s fear, and fear is our enemy.
Just like we can exercise in ways to improve our physical flexibility, likewise we can exercise our minds to do the same. We exercise our minds by being more curious, more optimistic, and more fearless to try new things.
And in so doing, we may just find the new and ever changing “routines” lead to more success in business and fun in life.
Keep chasing unleashed.
P.S. Find me on TikTok @chasingunleashed
Quote of the Week:
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.”
~ Edmund Burke
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