There Are No Silver Bullets
We live in a society that promises more, faster, better. If it’s not available at the tip of our fingers then it’s not worth our time. That’s an expectation that has been conditioned into us, and it comes at a very steep cost.
As a collective, we’re more impatient than ever. We want things to move fast and work well right away, so we’re always on the look out for the “silver bullet” to magically solve all of our problems. But no such thing exists.
If it wasn’t true before then it’s undeniably true now - Being consistent is a superpower.
Those who can consistently show up in the ways they need to in their health, career, and loved ones are rewarded with the life and lifestyle they desire.
Now here’s the nuance - Some strategies and tactics are more effective than others. You can in fact work smarter and harder at the same time to accelerate your success. So rather than waiting for the “silver bullets” of life, we’re better off seeking out “Golden BBs”.
These are the strategies and tactics that, when implemented, are more likely to help you get better results. They’ve worked for others which suggests that a version of them will work for you.
And that’s the important distinction. Rather than having one shot at success with a Silver Bullet, you can take many shots of Golden BBs. This gives you more of a chance to see which ones land so that you know which good ideas to build off of.
From what I’ve seen that’s how it really works. It’s ridiculous to think that your first attempt at anything is going to be the best, most effective way of doing it. Everything requires feedback to slowly settle toward its most optimized state. It’s being consistent about taking action, and giving yourself more reference points that really fuels this cycle.
As a personal example, I learned from a number of different trusted sources (most prominently Darren Hardy) that the best thing you could do to drive improvement in your life is to track your behavior. Consider that a Golden BB. So I began to implement it.
It started simply in a journal as a reflection on the day. It then evolved into a binder of sheets I filled out every evening. From there it moved into an online tracking system that could calculate my performance against my goals in real-time, and now has expanded with new details and features to give me even better insights into my growth.
It was through taking this good idea and implementing it consistently that I arrived at this highly optimized version of personal performance tracking. And if it interests you to skip the decade of trial and error to see what I landed on, I made a video for you that shares my self-improvement tracking system that I run my life with.
Check it out!
