The Problem with Choices

“Success in life is the result of good judgement. Good judgement is usually the result of experience. Experience is usually the result of bad judgement.”

-Tony Robbins-

There have been many changes as of late at CrossFit Pagosa. Each move has been with the thought of providing a better experience, adding more value, providing more information, or giving back more. With each new move there have been stumbles and problems along the way and some flat out failures. That is ok, though, because that is the only way to gain experience, to learn truly about a subject, or provide a better product/service.

A common business saying is to rush to version 3. Why version 3? Your first attempt will most likely be a complete flop with many problems and obstacles that you never saw in your head. This is a major problem for a technician like me - someone who is detail driven and thinks well past the basics of a subject. What I take for granted as common sense, assumed knowledge, a given understanding can be a step or two above where someone is currently. So the first version will fail from the lack of basics and consumer understanding. Version 2 is a much better product that solves all the original issue and serves everyone much better. The problem is that with each change to address the old problems you have created new potential issues. The focus is so much on the past that the future can be missed. Version 2 will be almost perfect but now you have to tweak the improvements. You must rush to version 3! For an example of this think of our Nutrition Challenge.

Rushing to version 3 can present a problem. The problem of choice. Today’s culture is obsessed with gathering information and seeing all the angles. The goal is to make an informed decision. However, with our information age you can find more information about a single subject than ever before in human history. Instead of better decisions being made there are two outcomes that happen regularly: no decision from fear of being wrong or paralysis by analysis. In a way then the choice becomes an obstacle to decision. Allan Watts brought this up in one of his many presentations and I was moved by it.

The website has been a project for some time but was stalled because this picture or that video not being ready, which became a reason to delay the process. The choice of waiting for the right time and gathering all the proper information on MX/DNS/Domain hosting/Alias mapping was becoming an obstacle to the decision. Within a matter of hours yesterday the new website was made live, the old one was closed down, the email broke, a new account was set up, forwarding was set up, Zen Planner was updated, and videos were put up. Nothing about it is perfect and there will be many bugs I’m sure. The failures that will come up are not an issue or to be feared. You become an expert from doing and not by researching. Experience is usually the result of bad judgement. Don’t be an idiot or a jerk but race from opportunity to failure to success to failure to opportunity to success. Don’t let hesitation hold you back from positive action.