My friend Alicia likes to joke that everytime we meet, I have a new job.
She’s not wrong.
My CV reads like a car crash. 6 months here. 1 year there. It’s truly astonishing if I last more than 18 months at one company.
For the longest time, this used to bother me.
Why can’t I stick at things?
But then I took a step back. Maybe I’m looking at this through the wrong lens.
See, there are plenty of things I’ve stuck with. Writing is the main one. But friendships too. Most of my closest friends have lasted 5+ years. I regularly speak with people I’ve known since the age of 4.
So the issue isn’t that I don’t stick with things.
It’s that I beat myself up over the things I don’t stick with.
The better question, then, is why? Why do I stick with some things and not with others? Why do I keep dropping particular hobbies and work projects?
In Outliers, Malcom Gladwell outlines three “qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.” These are “autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward.”
Looking back, I can see most of the things I’ve dropped don’t hit all three. Or they do for a time until one of them falls away.
I’m still figuring out what this all means.
And I’m okay with that.
Having awareness is 80% of the battle.