Imagine being in a job or a profession that no longer excites you or maybe it never did. You get up. Get dressed. Pour yourself some coffee. Go to work. Finish work. Have dinner. Go to bed. Rinse and repeat day-after-day, month-after-month, and year-after-year.
It’s a comfortable gig. It’s a known gig.
Welcome to complacency.
It happens. It happens in business. It happens in the workplace. It happens in our relationships. It happens in our day-to-day. It settles into our lives and we unknowingly welcome it.
We get comfy and cozy with the way things are. Comfy enough that not even the feeling of lackluster could shake us from the grips of complacency.
“The tragedy of life is often not in our failure, but rather in our complacency; not in our doing too much, but rather in our doing too little; not in our living above our ability, but rather in our living below our capacities.” — Benjamin E. Mays
My friends, I don’t believe that any of us was born to live “below our capacities”. We just sometimes do and we’re just sometimes unaware.
To bring on the awareness… I’m challenging all of us to consider the areas of our lives where we’re “living below our capacities”. Where we’ve allowed complacency to settle in and take root.
SIGNS OF COMPLACENCY
Since complacency can creep in silently and take over, here are a few signs to look out for.
- The double Ds. Becoming disengaged and disconnected from projects, people, activities, etc. With disengagement and disconnect often comes indifference.
- We stop taking the initiative.
- We find and use shortcuts or our efforts become half-assed.
- We don’t take chances.
- We lose hope that things won’t change and can’t change.
- We find ourselves more and more disgruntled in situations that didn’t disgruntle us before.
- Routine has taken over.
- We feel stuck.
- Things become predictable, whether it’s our jobs or our relationships.
- We begin to settle.
- We stop growing.
- We play small even when the potential is there to play bigger.
Are any of those signs present? If so, here are some simple tips we can use to shake things up. Complacency hates a good shake up!
OVERTHROWING COMPLACENCY AND THE STATUS QUO
“I’m not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.
– Niccolo Machiavelli
To overthrow complacency…
Lets get our creative on. Color. Draw. Write. Paint pottery. Cook….whatever strikes our creative fancy. Getting creative helps to move us beyond complacency.
Try something new; a new route, restaurant, food, hairstyle, pen color, or outfit. Nothing gives complacency a run for its money then by introducing something new.
Say “yes, and” instead of “yes, but”. “Yes buts” are followed by excuses, whereas “yes ands” are followed by options. Options are awesome complacency squashers.
Not going it alone. Asking someone we trust to call us out when we’re settling or showing signs of complacency.
Engage our values because when we do things connected to our values we aren’t in danger of getting stuck in a complacent place.
Take a page from a child’s book and stay curious and open to the potentials.
Now imagine your world without complacency. What would be possible?
Whatever we do let’s make a pact to give complacency a run for its money… because we definitely deserve to live way above our capacity.
Just know you don’t have to challenge complacency alone. I’m here and I’m listening.
As always, I’m sending you much love and light from my open heart to yours…
Originally published at www.whatswithinu.com.
Originally published at medium.com