3 Reasons This Post Will Change Your Life (Disclaimer: It Won't)

Jan 28

Jan 28 3 Reasons This Post Will Change Your Life (Disclaimer: It Won't)

Aspirations, Careers, Communications, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life, Marketing, Personal Codes

Yes, that title is clickbait. (Partially anyway.)

A title that is designed to lure you in and make you read what I’ve written.

Because it promises you salvation (or resolution or clarity or closure) in some form. Because it suggests that that salvation will come from a few discrete steps. Because it suggests that salvation is going to be easy (implicitly anyway).

And who doesn’t want all that? I certainly do, and as a result, I’ve clicked on more than a few clickbait titles in my time. That’s why they work. That’s how they lure you in.

The thing is, nothing’s ever so easy.

If you’re looking for a recipe or a set of DIY instructions (4 ways to unclog your toilet), then that click will likely do what it says, it will provide the insight, and hence resolution, you’re looking for.

But when it comes to the less defined aspects of our lives (dealing with business issues, self confidence, personal issues, etc.), 3 steps (or 5 or 6 or even 15) won’t really get you there. Mainly because our more complex issues don’t lend themselves to formulaic, neatly packaged recipes. There is no cookie cutter approach to tackling them. Sure, there are inputs and ideas and tools and tactics, but no simple solutions that reading an article will suddenly help solve.

That’s because they’re complex.

Solving for (or managing) these issues requires not simply steps and structure, but also creativity, and emotion, and intuition, and persistence, and discipline. It requires us to draw on the different facets of our humanity. It requires us to accept that the path isn’t always easy. And might need more than a few specific steps.

It’s also worth remembering that that path won’t be linear. That success (or whatever it is we’re after) often requires a circuitous route, filled with false starts, dead ends, and a host of others factors that deviate us from the straight line path we’d love to have.

That’s just life. And that’s OK.

Look, I’m not suggesting articles with clickbait titles don’t contain useful nuggets, or that they won’t sometimes provide eureka moments that allow you to galvanize your thinking and hence your actions along the right path.

I’m just saying that there’s plenty of hard work involved, as well as a good dose of judgement, and a whole lot more work. And reading an article won’t give you all that.