One of the main reasons why we don’t make the progress we can make in life is that we expect to acquire all the knowledge and skills possible in any endeavour before we make a move.
Rather than start a business, or a business venture, we want to learn everything there is to learn about the economy, finance, business, marketing, advertising, etc, etc.
etc.
Before we make any changes to what we eat, in order to improve our health, we feel the need to read up on nutrition, proper exercise, supplements, etc.
We want to know how to write the best articles possible before publishing anything that can be seen by a set of eyes other than our own. After all, we don’t want to expose our weaknesses or make any mistakes, and in order to be successful, we need to be known for being the best.
At least, that’s what we say to ourselves.
This approach is like going on a journey and trying to load everything we can possibly need or might find a use for onto our carriage before making a move. We go to great lengths to find the resources we need before we venture out, and continue to pile our belongings for fear that we might leave unprepared.
After finally deciding that we are ready enough to make a move we realize that the carriage is too heavy to pull!
We end up staying where we started, without making any progress and without making any use of the resources we amassed.
If you’ve been collecting books to read about business before getting your feet wet in a business, or trying to perfect a skill – such as writing – before putting it to practical use, then you need to bear this analogy in mind.
Having a loaded carriage isn’t a virtue. It’s what’s holding you back.
You might make much more progress with a backpack than with all the resources you will find on that burdened carriage.
Loading Up a Moving Carriage
Rather than collecting resources before making a move, you can load your carriage along the way.
This helps you determine exactly what you need (and not to burden yourself with heavy resources for hypothetical needs), you will be making progress as soon as possible (and with the little resources you might have now), it exposes you to opportunities you wouldn’t have been exposed to had you remained where you started and you would have developed momentum that allows you to make progress without much effort.
The sole need for the resources we collect is using them for the journey. Therefore, it’s important to focus on the journey and not the resources.
By loading a moving carriage, you will develop the appropriate focus and make the appropriate use of your resources!
3 replies on “The Loaded Carriage Analogy”
You didn’t address the question: How much is over-loading? How would you know you have at least a starter kit to get you going? This I believe is the major problem, and which leads people to keep adding more and more thinking that it isn’t enough.
Dear N,
Thanks for raising this important point.
To address the problem you pointed out, I would have to ask: Would you have a more accurate impression of the “starter kit” before beginning your journey, or by being exposed to some of the landscape?
The problem with planning and analyzing before making a move is that it can go on indefinitely while you grapple with problems that you might never face, or issues that aren’t as important as you make them out to be.
I will hopefully address this problem in greater detail in future posts. But the important lesson to take from this post is that we should pile on the resources while we are moving along the journey.
Even if our pace is slow, it’s better to keep moving!
As you said, it would be difficult to create a starter kit without some experience which people try to gain by overloading. Then again, a brief knowledge of the journey requirements is still necessary. Either that, or simply the essentials.
As you said however, it never is too good to overload from the start, which would slow the wagon from the start (and may make it impossible to move forward)!
I’ll be looking forward to those future articles. Thanks!