Avoiding burnout: Choosing which mountain to climb

You don't need to worry about progressing slowly. You need to worry about climbing the wrong mountain.

James Clear

In today’s world, faster is better. Speed is increasingly rewarded above everything else.

The best employees get work done quickly. Friends thank us for texting them back quickly. Losing weight is always lauded, but it’s more impressive the faster we do it.

There’s nothing wrong with quick progress unless it’s prioritized at the expense of long-term clarity.

Speed and efficiency only matter if we are pursuing something worthwhile.

If we’re not careful, years are wasted figuring out the fastest way to climb a mountain only to realize it’s the wrong one.

At the summit of the wrong mountain, two things become clear: all the effort we put in chasing the wrong thing yielded no meaningful results and we’re even farther away from achieving something worthwhile than we were when we started.

The Allures of the Fast Lane

There are two reasons we fall victim to climbing the wrong mountains.

The first is the speed trap. We crave instant gratification and want to feel like we’re making progress on whatever we’re pursuing.

These desires make us choose pursuits based on the speed of progress instead of outcomes.

We might choose a crazy diet instead of a sustainable one because we see results immediately or choose a job that allows for a quick rise through the ranks despite long hours and unfulfilling work.

The second reason we climb the wrong mountains is our desire for acceptance.

Thinking deeply about what we want to pursue and how to craft our lives is much harder than using the acceptance of others to choose which mountain to climb.

It’s reassuring to set off on a well-established trail filled with others heading in the same direction, but the volume of people pursuing something does not make it worthwhile.

In many cases, these two factors work in tandem. Many people pursue something because they receive instant gratification and make immediate progress. Then, many more people pursue the same thing because it’s become socially acceptable and rewarded.

The speed of our progress and the number of others pursuing the same thing should be irrelevant in choosing where we invest our time and energy.

What matters is that the pursuits we choose are worthwhile and the trails we follow lead somewhere meaningful to us as individuals.

Choosing the Right Trail

Choosing the right trail requires we evaluate our options carefully. To find what is worthwhile and meaningful, we need to ignore what others are doing and disregard the speed at which we can progress.

Making progress on the wrong thing is not making progress at all.

We’re better off using a pick ax to chip away at a rock we know is filled with gold, than using a jackhammer to clear away an entire quarry with nothing valuable trapped inside.

This is an increasingly difficult mindset to maintain as the value of speed in everything we do continues increasing.

But, if we learn to prioritize where we are going instead of how fast we’re getting there, we can guarantee we’re investing in meaningful areas of our lives.

Becoming a bit better each day in worthwhile pursuits will always be more valuable than blistering progress in something superficial.

Prompts

1. What temptation affects you more: instant gratification or the approval of the masses?

2. What mountains are you climbing in your life today? Why are you focusing your energy on them?

3. Are you pursuing what is worthwhile?

Deep Dive

• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown

  • A case for systematic discipline to focus on what is essential by cutting out the trivial.

This post is part of Prompted, a Series on IH.

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