In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.
Whenever a new chapter begins in my life, I always come back to this idea of sensitive dependence of initial conditions. Sometimes it’s a natural turning of pages, like graduating college or moving somewhere new. Other times it’s a self-induced transition – or a product of the built up pressures of life.
At the start of this semester, for example, I wrote out 3 simple conditions, or habits, to anchor my semester on a track towards success. I wanted to get back into shape, work on phenomenal hygiene and work on being more grateful. So every morning I made myself write out 3 things I was grateful for on my whiteboard and do 25 pushups when I woke up. Whenever I went back to my apartment, even for a minute, I made a rule where I had to brush my teeth.
I understand this just a fancy way to say that I’ve been thinking about my habits. But I like to think of these things as non-compromising principals that are easy to take action on. They act as your leading habits to put the rest of your day into place, lead dominoes that set up your success.
When I was preparing for the summer founders program last summer I worked very carefully to put into place principals and routines for our team to act on a weekly basis for those same reasons. I believed that our fate for the summer would start with the small things from the very beginning.
This is on my mind because an enormous chapter is ending in my life – college. And unlike every other chapter prior to this next one, there is no natural end date in sight.
I’m not going into an entry level job for a couple of years in an attempt to get experience to apply for a job that I actually want. There will be no more ends to a semester to use as a crutch to recalibrate my habits. My career will be very free-flowing, very unlike every other stage of my life until now.
From elementary school, to middle school, to high school, to college there’s been a clear relationship with success and time. And while naturally you’re growing over time, you’re also growing an absolute advantage as you climb the ladder presented to you and become the most experienced in the room. It’s a bit misleading on who is actually successful if you just take a look around, no matter your definition of success, because it’s difficult to develop a reference point across the board.
With this next step in a graduate’s life – that absolute advantage doesn’t accrue on a 4-year basis. It’s a 40-year basis. The absolute advantage older people has the potential to be much bigger – but there’s also more room to grow at a faster pace given less constraints. When you’re used to comparing yourself to your peers as a proxy for success, which has been rigged in a way that’s been built to work in your favor, it becomes problematic when that entire dynamic changes.
Mentally, that’s difficult to swallow – and will induce a lot of “quarter-life crises”. Am I on the right track? Am I successful?
Some say success takes time. Others say it’s in the process itself that you see success. No matter your interpretation, most people want to find success – and I do too.
So in analyzing what I really want out of my own next chapter, I’ve been asking myself then two questions:
- What non-compromising leading habits (initial conditions) can I develop to see success in what I do as a businessman, friend, and other roles I have in my life?
- What will be my reference point within myself to measure my own growth?
It’s small shifts in your actions, tiny changes in mindset, that can lead to massive alternations of your end result.
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