The Prongs - There’s Always Something You Can Do

Following on from last week’s blog, I mentioned how life’s obstacles are inevitable.

And sometimes during these obstacles, your morning routines, daily habits and goals are set aside. However, I do believe there’s always something you can do.

I believe identity is a major part of self-improvement and becoming the person you want to be, and the reason obstacles can completely derail you is that they disrupt that identity. If you stop doing what makes the ‘new you’, then you’re no longer the new you.

This is never final, although you lose the momentum, and sometimes even identity, you can always get the bolder moving again.

But this is always going to be the harder option; the easier one would be staying on track, keeping your identity and keeping as much momentum as possible during life’s curveballs, and for that, the prongs will help.

The Prongs

The prongs are an analogy of sorts that I came up with a few years ago. They describe layering your self-improvement in various ways, so that you always have something to improve.

The analogy is, if you were to stick a spear into the ground and a gust of wind were to blow, the chances of that spear tipping over are quite high, but a pitchfork, with multiple prongs, would have a much higher chance of staying put.

The wind is life’s obstacles, and the prongs are the various ways in which you’re improving. The more prongs you have, you more stable your identity and momentum will be. 

Let’s say your whole journey of self-improvement and growth is relying on your new exercise and fitness routine; one injury could bring you to a standstill. But let’s say you also started a new reading habit and just began journaling, even though you still couldn’t work out, at least you can improve in these different ways.

This keeps your identity intact, but also keeps the momentum alive.

I mentioned that last week I was in the middle of relocating to another country, and my days were filled with building furniture, although most of what I’d do daily had stopped, I still managed to keep learning a language on my phone, and even hit a 700-day Duolingo streak in the midst of it all.

This reminded me of the prongs, thus reminding me of their importance. I didn’t move mountains, but I took another step, and sometimes that’s all that matters.

It kept my identity, momentum, the law of compounding, consistency, discipline, and many other important aspects of growth intact and alive, even though it only took 3-5 minutes to do each day, which leads me onto the next point. 

How To Make Them Work

The prongs work, no doubt about it, for all the reasons listed above. But they remain within a very fine line between optimal and completely destructive.

One side of the line will keep you going, and the other will do the opposite, and it all depends on two things.

The trick to layering your self-improvement successfully comes down to the difference in type and the difference in load.

Difference in types means that being unable to complete one prong for a reason doesn’t mean being unable to do another for the same reason. Basically, if you run but also go to the gym, although these count as two different prongs, getting a cold or being ill will stop both.

I’m not saying don’t do both, I do, I’m saying this won’t be enough. Adding something like reading or learning a language means that even if you get ill, you still get to improve. Actually, you’ll get to do more reading and learning than before. The time you would’ve spent working out can now be used to do extra reading.

A difference in load means not having all prongs that require the same difficulty and require the same amount of time to complete. This has two negative side effects, one being that when something happens like relocation, having all areas of growth that require a lot of time means not being able to complete any. 

I was still able to continue learning a language only because it takes so little time.

The second side effect is risking overwhelming yourself; having too many big tasks to complete each day can be a lot and lead you to a point of not completing any. It also means that your performance in the ones that matter more will decrease due to the time and energy spent on the ones that matter less.

What you want to do is add smaller prongs, in different areas, onto the bigger prongs that matter to you the most. This way, when obstacles arrive, you get to at least do something and face the obstacles with your identity and momentum intact.

If you want to create true growth, stability and always have something to do to improve, add more prongs.

What will you choose to add?