Ep134: The Complacency Scale

When things are going well, it’s natural to want to stay where you’re at. But at what point does lack of change become complacency? Where does contentment stop being a positive in business?

Why is that important for business? 

It’s a wonderful feeling when you’ve had a great year in business and realize that there isn’t much you’d change about how things are going. But comfort can easily start to feel dangerous. How do you avoid changing for change’s sake, but not surrender to complacency either? 

In the middle, between complacency and hunger, is comfort, and it can feel dangerously close to complacency. You don’t want to always be chasing something new, and you can’t be successful if you don’t have some drive to make things better - the fascination with gaps is what motivates entrepreneurs. You want enough contentment to turn away work that isn’t a fit, but when you find yourself coasting, that can be a problem. 

In the beginning, change is often big and involves a lot of scrappy hustle. But there comes a point when it feels more like refining and tweaking. You stay in the comfort zone until a new hunger emerges, a new itch, that motivates you to make change. But you have to respect the flow. Goal setting at this stage becomes more nuanced and strategic. This can’t be about simply doing “more”, because at some point, more doesn’t feel different, it just feels more. You must find ways to layer in evolution. Complacency comes with lack of evolution. 

But the opportunity to grow isn’t a mandate to grow. You need to be able to be content and be satisfied with what is (and not haunted by what isn’t). Only then do you earn the right and stability to evolve. If you keep trying to evolve and innovate without the base of satisfaction, it’s going to feel bad. 

Resources mentioned

The Bigger Game workshop https://www.biggergame.com/2-day-experience/

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