There are two approaches to life, you can plan everything in meticulous detail, or just go for it with whatever works. In fact, some of the greatest achievements and inventions come from that whatever works philosophy, and it can really help you achieve your goals.
Every time you use superglue, remember it was created as an accident, a discarded mistake when trying to create a completely different substance, but pressed into service as an adhesive for experimental plane cockpits it proved successful, and the rest is history. Using whatever works has unleashed free thinking and more, giving us everything from post-it notes to penicillin.
But what can it mean for you?
We are all unique, and our journeys through life will be just as different from each other’s as well, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from others. One of the things that can hold you back is procrastination, putting of until tomorrow what we could do today, and one of the most common ways that manifests is by convincing ourselves we don’t have everything we need. If your goal is to write a novel, you may convince yourself you need a new laptop with the latest software to get started, when all you really need is a pen and paper to begin putting ideas down. Even in financial trading, people think they need not just a strategy, but thousands of dollars to get started and test everything out, when a demo account can allow them to begin learning long before they need to start risking real money. Even more basic, a simple chart, a currency price, and a spreadsheet will do.
Here, whatever works is the antidote to procrastination, instead of enabling excuses to put things off, whatever works compels you to take action, to do that thing now, with the tools or resources you have today, rather than waiting for the perfect moment with everything in place. Because chances are, that perfect moment is never going to occur.
Free your thinking, explore your creativity
By using whatever works, you do more than take action though, it frees you from the rigid thinking that society can make you believe is the only way and give you the freedom to develop your own approach, whatever it may be. By using whatever works, you will have to be creative, use things, whether physical or ideas, in a new way, adapt what you have to what you wish to do, and that can unlock your thinking and let you find a new approach that changes everything. Perhaps the best example of this in modern history is Apollo 13, the 7th mission in the Apollo Space Program carrying astronauts and was intended to be a moon landing. However, the craft was damaging en route, leaving the crew in immediate danger. By utilizing what they had to hand in the craft, a limited range of equipment, the crew and ground team worked together to adapt the craft and safely return the three astronauts back to Earth.
The creativity in the solutions used in that situation led to permanent changes in the design of future craft and shows what can happen when instead of a rigid approach, we are forced to adopt whatever works. Now, to embrace whatever works in your life won’t need such a drastic situation, just remember that whatever the project or problem, before walking away due to not having everything needed, look at what you do have and think about how that can be used instead.
Once you shift to that mindset, the positive approach that there is a solution to be found rather than the negative one of not having the required equipment, resources or whatever, you can see new opportunities and your creativity will be unleashed.
Don’t put limits on your own ideas, use whatever works, and let the creative solutions flow.
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