Reply To: Exercise 9: Second Personal Essay
Method Initiative – Exercise 9
I initially started learning Method Initiative to rule out shiny objects and find something I wanted to cultivate and bring to life. As we rely on technology more and more, loneliness and our attachment to things seem to be more and more correlated. I chose my project based on the highest number of votes and promptly went from 11 projects down to one. That was the first time I iterated from clinging onto everything to choosing and running with one. My initial plan was to narrow down to do two projects and do double initiative for double the gains and soon I realized that for the effort, I didn’t find the most value in doing that. Hence, with much pain, I chose a single project.
At the beginning I was committed to the exercises with a mechanical task-oriented and brute-force-completionist type of mentality. I was more focused on finishing the exercise as compared to truly immersing myself in the project and being fully present. Being execution-oriented is fantastic! However, I started running into issues when I failed to iterate earlier on in the exercises. I couldn’t understand what iterate meant or how to iterate. Then I realized after many weeks clinging desperately onto my vague and broad solution, that iterating simply meant to make incremental changes based on the information I had. And, since this is a project cultivated by oneself, there’s no rubric for what is a right or wrong change. There is simply change that is chosen and change that is not. I found that when I was willing to iterate and flesh out my solution framework, that I could get more specific advice. I also found that when I would ask someone specific questions in relation to their fields, I could also get more specific advice.
In regards to the 7 principles, my understanding has grown or strengthened in the first four. I was already a preexisting believer in the first principle, that personality matters less than skills you can learn. I think this is why I was willing to take the workshop, because I knew that I would learn some valuable skills.
For principle number two, I can see how someone working at the peak of their passion and values might be able to complete an iteration of method initiative every single month. I imagine that even if the projects end up to not be what someone desires to work on, that ruling out a project is also valuable because it keeps from distractions as well. A few days ago a former employee asked me to be the president, secretary, or treasurer for their developing nonprofit which served a very specific demographic that held no personal meaning nor relation to me. In addition to expressing that it might be a conflict of interest for me in relation to one line of my work, I internally felt a lack of resonance in such a way that even if I were completely safe from potential conflicts of interest, I still might not be interested in taking on such roles. It’s coming at a very interesting time because it is a great idea, and yet, it doesn’t seem to hold much resonance with me.
On the third principle, collecting market feedback felt straightforward, but I realized that what I was missing was the flexibility to change my solution framework and the iterations of making changes and being willing to seek new feedback on the changes. Once I moved into the headspace of being willing to and being able to make changes vs. less on simply completing the task, I felt like the exercises because more meaningful.
The fourth principle of starting where you are with what you have resonates very strongly because that is also my approach to life. I was motivated to take Method Initiative because I had heard people say that they felt like it was a super power. I was wondering when I would feel the ‘click’ of my skills feeling like a super power, which is why I initially pursued the exercises with such fervor. However, when I paused, this principle I realized that perhaps the super power doesn’t lie in simply gaining the skills to take a project from ideation to fruition, but rather also in discovering one’s own shortfalls, attachments, misconceptions, and fears that we continuously run away from. Ultimately, starting with where you are with what you have sets you up for facing yourself, looking directly in the mirror and acknowledging who you are and where you are.
My field of interest is in helping environmentally conscious people who want to minimize their belongings who feel overwhelmed. My three second solution is to help willing people to gain agency in reducing overwhelm with a structured framework. My extended solution framework: Find willing and motivated people via an intake assessment. Provide an optional familiarized group environment for people to uncover and share the root cause of their unique emotional attachments to physical belongings, as well as their motivation for taking action. Inspire action by engaging people in crafting a personalized SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goal. Connect people with a body double (someone to get things done alongside) or accountability buddy. Equip folks with resources for sustainably reducing their inventory via donations, the buy-nothing project, recycling, and ultimately by gaining an awareness for and making a commitment to reduce inventory inflow. This problem is particularly meaningful to me as I feel like I struggled with overwhelm for many years. It’s been an onion-peeling process to reduce my own belongings and reduce my overwhelm, and on the other side, it has been liberating.
Sometimes when I got advice that would flip-flop back and forth, it seemed like a time I could provide option to others. I also got advice to narrow down my target market, and still others said that ‘environmentally conscious people’ was too narrow and would be exclusive. I don’t feel strongly one way or another about aforementioned advice. Perhaps I would need more tangible market feedback first to see how I would feel about leaning one way or another and iterating further.
In doing the financials I realized that I was having a hard time monetizing the project. It felt like I was pulling numbers out of thin air. I am not feeling particularly compelled to charge for the project, and at the same time, it seems like not everyone can just show up voluntarily forever because obviously I would have to pay for the costs of renting the space and hosting. Aka I have to eat. I find enough value in supporting people in reducing their overwhelm to where I might still pursue this personally in an ad hoc method rather than the framework I created. Perhaps there’s enough value to pursue the topic in a small way, but it’s not so crazily motivating for me to expand and scale the solution as of yet. I would love to get paid and paid well for doing what I do in this space, but perhaps the issue is finding the right clientele that would pay what I believe my value add is worth.
On the topic of taking initiative, I feel like this ability was largely muted in my life, especially with my career in corporate America, feeling like taking initiative was only rewarded when it was obviously visible to the right people at the right time, rather than something inherently rewarded. Most of my life I feel like I would do what I should do or what I thought I should do or even what others thought I should do. What taking initiative has forced me to do thus far is to choose entirely for myself and confront the responsibility of those choices. To commit and stick with a project or to scrap it and restart. To stick with a current iteration or to change and iterate the project. To reschedule things in my calendar in a way that flows better for me. To reduce the frequency of connection with folks that are not in a synchronous path with where I am going. To be able to quickly say no to an opportunity to take a leadership role in a charity that I’d be happy to support but am not inherently motivated by. To take the right opportunity at the right time to walk away from a job and business model that doesn’t resonate with my drive to help people live better lives.
Reflection:
• Did you learn anything about yourself in writing the essay?
I have discovered that I didn’t like making decisions for myself because I had to confront the responsibility that came with choosing. But then in not choosing for myself, I feel resentful, towards myself, others, or both. Surprisingly, choosing for myself is liberating. Namely, in some of my life decisions, people have been telling me that I look excited, happy, energized, and at peace.
• Do you feel you changed more, less, or about the same as you expected before writing?
I don’t know that I feel changed – perhaps it’s that I’ve come into a greater awareness of myself.
• How do you feel about:
• Responsibility? – Responsibility comes with choices, and that which comes from choosing for oneself is comparatively lighter than that which results from being chosen for, at least so far.
• Motivation? – Intrinsic motivation is the most authentic, self-aligning type that creates high frequency emotions.
• Initiative? – Initiative can appear to be work. More often than not, it is or it can be. When it’s aligned with our authentic selves at the highest resonance, it becomes and feels like a joy. To get from work to joy, it’s a process.
• Entrepreneurship? – is more accessible than appears based on what people say. People get more caught up in what people think than what they could actually learn by taking action.
• What do you feel has been most meaningful, valuable, important, or purposeful about your project so far? Or your personal development?
Something meaningful about my project is that I discovered that the topic matters enough to me to pursue individually as I have in the past. Perhaps enough to pursue an iteration or two of my project to gain more feedback. However, it’s not something I feel like I would dedicate to as my life’s work at this current stage. Perhaps it’s something I’ve known, but haven’t prioritized accordingly. In the past, all the shiny objects appeared to be the same, and now they seem to vary in value to me for clearer reasons.