The Vicious Trap Of Complacency

If you are a regular visitor of this blog, you may have noticed the reduced frequency of my post entries. Let me clarify, I have been writing an entry every weekday for the past 2.5 months, and it is my joy and privilege every time I write. But just last week, I realised this is not sustainable. I have a full time job but because I was still new and my team was pretty busy with their year-end project, I ended up having nothing much to do. Now work started to pile up and you can see where I might be heading next.

Not only my time allocated for blogging will be significantly reduced, my one big concern is writer’s block. My friends have asked me how did I managed to get inspiration daily, to update a blog entry every weekday. My only answer is to spend about 2 hours to read, daily. Read books, blogs and email subscriptions. Read 200 books, 50 books is equivalent to having one mentor. Check out the books that can take your breaths away. Read books that can keep your attention span for the longest period of time. 1 hour. 10 hours. 3 days. One week. Then write. Now I have cut down my weekly posts to 2-3 posts, in hope that I will come out with better quality posts. It is more viably sustainable this way. 

Could this be a vicious trap of complacency for me? A few weeks back I wrote about my fears, one of which is the fear of complacency. I am afraid once I get comfortable with something, complacency will start creeping in and eat me alive. Are you being comfortable with your finance at the moment? Are you living a carefree and enjoyable life, not having to worry about where is the next meal going to come from, OR you are worrying about not having enough money to pay your bills by the end of this month?

Not actively managing one’s financial health is the biggest mistake one can possibly fall into, sprung from the trap of complacency. One may be thinking one’s salary is sufficient enough to pay for everything, until one gets oneself into deep hole of debt, most commonly credit card and hire purchase. Many people opt to spend on short term gratifications than saving and investing. We buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like. It doesn’t make much sense but it’s true for many of us. Now I don’t know about you, but being complacent with my finance is the last position I will want to place myself in.

What about your job if you are working? Are you getting comfortable settling into your workplace, and start thinking what’s next? Is your job giving you the highest level of satisfaction, if not what can be done to boost the satisfaction level? A change of job perhaps? Maybe a shift to other department of the same company you are working at? If we start getting complacent of where we are, we risk setting ourselves into a stagnant mode. Nothing in your workplace will be more interesting than waiting for the arrival of this upcoming weekend.

Recently I read about one way to increase productivity in everything you do, at the same time keep your motivation and satisfaction level at the peak. Perhaps, this could be the key to combat the trap of complacency. 

Overpromise over-deliver

When we overpromise something, we tend to set the bar one notch higher than what we would have set on an ordinary basis. Many people (me) tend to be afraid in setting difficult goals and overpromise things simply because of fear of failures. Failures that will lead to public embarrassment and put our venerable reputation at stake. Admit it, we loathe public humiliation. Nobody is dumb enough to step out of their shell to do that, which may explain the reason behind most members of top management level and leaders being a conversative bunch of people. 

Most people who have built their careers from the scratch would do everything to preserve their career empires, but only a few would be bold enough to come out with radical ideas and overpromise things. As we climb up the golden ladder of success, our capacity to dream somehow shrinks. However when we overpromise things, we position ourselves in an uncomfortable state of mind, and it is this exact state of mind that will lead us to over-delivering.

Last weekend I went to this property showroom and the agent told me the completion period of this project is early 2019. When we asked why, the agent told us the project will most likely be completed by mid-2018, but because they do not want to overpromise the customers, they added a buffer period of 6 months which may seem perfectly plausible. But it reminded me that overpromise things is not necessarily a bad thing, if we can deliver the final result way earlier than the expected time without compromising the work quality.

What if we can’t deliver on time? Not likely, simply because our reputation will be at stake. It takes one or two decades to establish our name, but only one day is enough to obliterate our reputation. By overpromising and over-delivering, we leave no room for complacency. 

Napolean Hill’s Thought For The Day was sent to my email 5 days ago and it stated this: