Making things work - what is the impact of our approach on how we make things work and whether they ever really work for us?
Have you ever heard yourself think or say something like: ‘this has to work’ or ‘I can enjoy it when it is working’?
In those cases how have you or others approached the thing? How much has it taken to make it work? What happens when, or if, it gets to the point of working?
While there are many times where making things work is necessary and important, there are also times when only focusing on making it work may mean it never really works.
So while making something work is an essential process, something working is often an ongoing state of being and so begs the question, when it is working, how do we want it to be working, because, most likely that is how we will continue to be working to make it work.
What is the risk of seeing the things we may always be trying to make work as an outcome rather than an ongoing process?
What is the impact of how we see making it work on whether we really make it work or not?
When we are focusing on making something work, what are we focusing on? An outcome, the process, or both?
If making it work involves repeating an outcome, then we are likely to be repeating a process, and in that case, how we make that outcome work will likely be the process we repeat.
An example that comes to mind is all the times I have caught myself thinking ‘when I have done x or got to y, then I can relax and really enjoy it’. When the reality is more often, when I have gotten to x then to sustain x, I need to keep doing what I have been doing.
At which point I risk being (and have been) caught in the loop: to have x, I can only ever do what I have done to get here.
A day to day case could be ‘I can only relax when I have done all the chores and household tasks’. In reality, none of those are prerequisites to actually relaxing. Another case, on a larger scale is: ‘when I am earning y amount of money I can relax and work a little less hard’.
When making it work is in fact about continuing to make it work — when we mistake an outcome for an ongoing state that requires sustaining or ongoing work — we risk taking an approach for the sake of an outcome that we have to perpetuate to maintain that outcome.
How to check what making it work is really creating - a state or an outcome or both
Think of something you want to be working in a certain way:
What does making it work look like?
When it is working what is different?
When it is working, is that the end of the process to making it work?
If making it work isn’t the end of the process to making it work, what does that mean for how you want to make it work?
If you were to do your current method of making it work, how sustainable would continuing to make it work feel for you?
If we step back even further, what are you really trying to make it work for?
What are all the other ways you could make it work?
If you had to make it work forever, how would you like to do it?
What may be the most sustainable way for us to make things work?
Making it work does not make it work for us
When I have led in the past, a lot has been achieved through sheer force of will. While this can be a really great attribute it is not a sustainable way of making things work. Each year a challenge or barrier was overcome through sheer force of will, which is ultimately less sustainable than asking: is there another way to make this work?
This reflection, with the benefit of hindsight, also begs the question: what do we need to allow us to see how we may be making things work?
What do we need to consider if there may be alternatives to making it work?
What would it look like if we focused more on making ‘making it work’ work for us?
What would we need to focus on and remember what we’re seeking to make it work for?
What do we risk losing or missing out on if we get caught up solely in making it work?
What would be possible if we focused on making things work in a way that we feel excited and energised to sustain, to continue to make work?
