🤫 Whisper #10: Be internally consistent
The value of internal consistency, and asking yourself "What do I really want?"
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Whisper #10
What do I really want?
This week's Whisper is all about being honest with yourself and consistent with your actions.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the micro swirl of tech mythology, keeping up with the Joneses, and in the daily politics at work that we can forget what we really want.
This can be in a macro sense (who you want to be when you grow up) and in the minor daily decisions we influence at work every day (this feature vs that feature, this design decision vs that one).
When we don’t know what we really want in a given situation, our behavior often becomes inconsistent and hard for others to predict. Inconsistency can confuse the people around us, and even ourselves.
And being inconsistent almost always results in getting less than what we actually want or need.
Being consistent, by contrast, allows the people around you to build reasonable mental models of what to expect. This makes it easier for them to predict your reactions, and easier to give you more of what you want.
Being consistent with yourself also ensures that the actions you are taking today are leading you down the path of the life you want to live, and not some perverted version of someone else’s dreams.