Organic Mutant

I had an interesting conversation with Nancy today, in which we discussed the nature, magnitude, and meaning of our professional challenges. Our chat reminded me of just how important I find it to be challenged in my own life. Since I was a child, I have always embraced new challenges, whether physical or intellectual. In fact, I love feeling challenged.

When I do not feel challenged, I feel stagnant. When I feel stagnant, I don’t feel motivated. When I feel stagnant and unmotivated, I do less, and when all that happens I fall into a rut. When I am in a rut, my self esteem drops, I am less social, I am less ambitious, and in general feel like trash.

When I do feel challenged, I feel stimulated. When I am stimulated, I get excited about things. That excitement wakes me up early in the morning, guides me to make better choices in many facets of my life, and propels me to meet my challenge. To me, challenge is invigorating and the root of it all, challenge is essential to my life.

Why is this so?

I enjoy routine as much as the next blogger, but at the same time find routine to be oppressive. It dims my candle. When I was a schoolboy, I was always excited to learn new subjects. But, being a fast learner, I would grasp lessons so quickly that - as the information was repeated ad nauseum for the other students, I would quickly become bored, and often that would lead to disruptive behavior. (But I was still a good student). Anyhow, the same phenomenon lives within me today. Of course, I am a grown man now and bear a bit more responsibility to my reactions, but the way things affect me has not changed since I was 12 years old.

At work, I have seen the same pattern played out a number of times over the past several years. I take on a new task, with merely a vague notion as to what is being asked of me, then endeavor mightily to master the task and ultimately turn out work of the highest caliber. In some cases I’ve had guidance while in others I have journeyed solo. In either circumstance, eventually I did attain a level of mastery of my discipline, and then spent additional energy to institutionalize and disseminate my learnings and methods.

But once that process is over, I eventually fall into that sense of stagnancy. The only way to avoid that awful fate is to find new challenges. The arc of professional growth that I have followed since 2000, when I left the radio biz and embarked upon my life as a designer, has moved with fits and starts, but in an odd way there has been an irregular rhythm, upon which I have propelled myself to ever greater challenges - up to and including my current position. Best of all, I have been able to endeavor into new challenges while tapping the reservoir of knowledge and experience that I have accumulated over the past 6 years, and at the same time been stimulated by the talented and professional colleagues with whom I work. Not too shabby.

Looking back, it seems that what I love is being good at things, but not at things that seem easy. I need to feel that I am good at things that are hard to do. That’s what I need in my life. Challenge me, and you have me hooked. Take it easy on me, and soon I will loose interest and wander off in the other direction.