What works best

26/02/2024 / binarybea / 2 Comments

Do you consider yourself a person of habit, used to always doing things the same way?

If the answer is yes, I have a quote for you:

Until you change how you get things done, you’ll never know what works best.
Roy T. Bennet

This is something that took me a long time to learn: over the years, I slowly came to realize that behind my perfectionism and my willingness to do everything "right" there was an unconscious belief that there was only ONE "right" way to do each thing, and that if I wasn´t able to do it exactly that way, then I was making a mistake, I was doing it "wrong". Moreover, every time I tried a new activity and didn´t get it right at the first try, I automatically assumed I was always going to be bad at it, and I rarely gave it a second chance.

Just imagine how incredibly limiting this thought can be... When in our minds there´s only one way of getting it right among a thousand ways of screwing up, it´s no surprise that the fear of getting it wrong causes us to feel tense, or even paralyzed.

But what if we could turn this around? What if there were a thousand ways of getting it right, or at least, a thousand ways of gathering information to guide us towards a better result?

Here´s where that famous quote from the inventor or the light bulb comes to mind:

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Thomas A. Edison

Woman holding a big drawing of a lightbulb, against the background of a white wall full of drawings and diagrams

That´s precisely the value of experimentation: learning from each try in order to find a better solution. Or several ones, as problems rarely have only a single solution.

But, to be able to try other ways of doing things, first we need to be able to come up with them, and our brain gets a bit lazy when it comes to blazing new trails... It´s much better at going back to the beaten tracks, as they´re easier to traverse and require far less energy.

One of the main benefits of coaching and self-discovery is that they help us to overcome that cognitive rigidity, that resistance we have to getting out of auto-pilot mode. This way, by realizing that the way we see things is just another perspective, as valid as many others, we can allow ourselves to consider other possibilities and viewpoints, and from there, expand our options range and find more adaptive solutions.

And while we´re in the process of trying new strategies and designing solutions that work better for us, we learn to trust that others can also find their own. Because, once the "single perfect solution" myth has been busted, we realize there´s no point in imposing our judgement on others: we each have our own style, our own worldview and our particular set of circumstances, and something that works for one person may not necessarily work for another.

So then, what can we do? Well, we can share our learnings and experiences with other people, explain what works for us, what doesn´t work, and why, compare strategies and points of view, and be open to trying new ways of obtaining what we need or want.

We can even take it as an experiment: if I change this variable, what happens? What changes? Does the result improve, or get worse? All of this knowing that your own result is personal and untransferable, and that the winning formula will probably be different for each of us.

So, with Mr. Benet´s permission, I´m going to slightly modify his quote:

Until you change how you get things done, you’ll never know what works best FOR YOU.

What about you? Do you already know what works best for you? What aspects of your life would benefit from some experimentation?

Untranslatable words: overthinking

19/02/202419/02/2024 / binarybea / Leave a comment

Today´s post is going to be quick, without thinking too much 😀

This term is included on my list of untranslatables, not for having a particularly complex meaning, but for being such a simple, clear and elegant word in English:

Overthinking.

Multiple rows of empty orange sticky notes on a light purple background

The Spanish version would be something along the lines of "pensar demasiado", "pasarse de pensar", or if we want to summarize in a single word, "sobrepensar"... All of these sound much clumsier to me than the original, but you get the idea, right?

This word fills my mind with memories from years ago: long evenings and nights playing board games, and almost every time, there was a friend (or it could be two, or three) taking foreeeeeeeeever to decide their next move... The rest of us would quickly start to sing "OOOOOO-VER-THIN-KER" following the notes from Movierecord, to hurry them up.

Well, this week Instagram showed me a phrase on this topic that I thought was absolutely brilliant:

OVERTHINKING = UNDERACTING

So true. When we devote ourselves to thinking too much, we inevitably end up doing too little... Or nothing at all, which is even worse.

And that approach prevents us from moving forward. Going over a problem in our head doesn´t solve anything; it's only by taking action that we can change things and make real progress. So let's take action once and for all, and whatever happens, happens.

What about you, what's been on your mind lately? What's that thing you've been thinking too much and doing too little about? And when are you going to wake up and take action?

Productivity

12/02/202412/02/2024 / binarybea / Leave a comment

What does "a productive day" mean to you?

I´ve realized I frequently judge how well my day went based on how productive it was... Or rather, on how productive I was. Does this sound familiar?

Silver letters forming the word "productive", on a background made with crumpled dark blue paper

Productivity is a topic I´ve always been interested in; in fact, it´s what first brought me to the personal development world. I remember the old times when I used to search for tips and strategies to stay on top of my never-ending to-do list. And I did find a few tools that helped me, but only to a certain extent.

Because in reality, what was happening to me was much more complex than I thought. As it's usually the case.

That´s why in coaching we like probing and digging a bit beneath the surface, because often times the "problem" our client is coming with is just a symptom of a deeper conflict or imbalance, which they themselves are unaware of. For example, time management issues tend to reflect underlying priority management issues, and procrastination may be caused by conflicting values or priorities.

A widely used coaching technique consists of asking questions like the one at the beginning of this article: "What does X mean to you?" This may seem silly, but at the end of the day, words are symbols we use to represent things, and when we´re discussing relatively abstract terms, our thoughts are much more complex than the words we use to describe them. Breaking down the word´s meaning and explaining it out loud (or in writing) can help us to make very interesting discoveries.

For example, the concept of productivity is linked to the action of "producing", and I´ve realized I used to believe that a person could only be productive when they were "producing" something tangible, something measurable. When I started my professional career, first as a programmer and later on as a systems analyst, it was easy for me to determine whether I was being productive or not, for I had documents, diagrams and lines of code as proof. Then as I progressed to a different kind of role, the game rules suddenly changed: there were more meetings and less defined tasks, and I found myself a bit lost; very often I would get to the end of the day with a feeling of not having contributed at all.

Then slowly but surely, I started adapting and evolving my definition of productivity. It took me years to get rid of the idea that the time I spent "chatting with people" (= at meetings, especially 1:1s) didn't count as work, because I wasn't producing anything. Now I know that talking to my colleagues and fostering work relationships not only it's not a waste of time, it's actually an essential part of my job, and it makes a huge difference in terms of pushing projects forward. Now that I know the transformational power of a good conversation, it's one of the things I enjoy the most.

And what about outside of work? Well, I've realized that this constant need to produce has a lot of weight in my personal life as well, so I still find it difficult to prioritize rest, leisure and self-care at the same level of importance as other things that "must be done". Without even noticing, I fill up my evenings and weekends with tasks to be completed, so that at bedtime I can say it was a productive day... But the good news is that now I'm aware of it, and I'm working on balancing it out, also being careful not to fall into the guilt trap.

What do you think? Is productivity important to you? And how do you measure it?

Ádh Mór

05/02/202405/02/2024 / binarybea / Leave a comment

This Saturday, my friends María and Miguel celebrated their farewell party; after eighteen years of adventures in Ireland, they´ve decided to move back to Spain, to continue living adventures there. And the venue chosen for the party couldn´t be more fitting: the Market Bar, which is exactly where we met and formed our friends group shortly after arriving in Dublin.

It all started thanks to a website called Spaniards, a pioneer community of Spanish people around the world created by our friend and former college classmate Eneko Alonso (thanks Eneko!), back in 2005. The website had forums for different countries, and the forum for Ireland got very successful, with high participation and nice vibes, so at some point, somebody thought of organizing a meet-up in a Dublin bar.

The first ever monthly Spaniards meet-up in Market Bar took place in November 2006. I remember it well because I was heavily pregnant with Irene, our eldest daughter; in fact, we missed the second meet-up due to Irene being just a newborn baby. But then we attended the third one, and from then onwards, we were there almost every time, including the special meet-up we organized for St. Patrick´s Day parade in March 2007.

I remember I met Miguel on that St. Patrick´s Day, and then I met María at the following meet-up. Our approach was basically to show up at the meeting point on the specified date and time, and start talking to other Spanish people, often introducing ourselves with our usernames in the Spaniards website, so that we could recognize each other: cornflakegirl, bigfredi, triskitas, miguev, flekiboy... Mine was, of course, binarybea.

It´s possible be that none of this sounds weird to you, because nowadays it´s completely normal to meet people online. But believe me: back then, this was highly unconventional. Thankfully, we were all on the geeky side so we went for it, and we were also incredibly lucky, because those never-ending meet-ups (where we talked for hours and hours) resulted not only in many good friendships, but also in one or two couples 🙂

It is true that, over the years, our group has become somewhat scattered: some of us stayed in Ireland, others made a jump to other countries like Switzerland, the United Kingdom or the United States, others went back to Spain... But it´s also true that other new friends have arrived during the past few years, new members for our little group of Spaniards.

It´s wonderful to be able to connect with like minded people, especially when you´re in a strange environment. Unfortunately, the Spaniards website no longer exists, but luckily, there are many other options: Facebook groups, Instagram groups and other platforms where the Emerald Isle´s new inhabitants can share information and make friends.

Now María and Miguel are swapping their Irish adventure for a new Spanish one. Good luck guys! Ádh mór!