No Half Measures
It's all in or not in at all. Often, we think we're being smart when we hedge our bets. Pursuing multiple goals simultaneously feels like the safe approach. Yet compromise leads only to death. No half measures. Either do or don't.
7/22/20264 min read
This is Part 2 of a series. Part 1 is a Jack-of-all-trades. Part 3 is Synthesis to Mastery.
I heard a story from a retired beat cop once. He used to get called out on domestic disputes all the time. He’d done hundreds of them. But there was this one guy that he’d never forget. Brodie. Big guy, maybe 280 or 290 lbs. But his wife, was tiny. Small like a baby bird.
They were at that house every week and one of them would pull the wife aside and say, “Tonight’s the night we press charges.” Now, this wasn’t one of those “deep down he loves me” setups. This girl was scared. But she wasn’t going to cross him. She wouldn’t give him up. Nothing the cops could do but pass her off to the EMT’s and put him in a car and jail the guy for the night. He’d sleep it off and next morning, he’d be free to go. Back home.
But one night, it was just him. The call comes in and it’s the same crap. Broke her nose in the shower, yadda, yadda, ya. So, he cuffed him and drove him off again. Only that night, this asshole is sitting in the back humming “Danny boy”. And it just rubbed the cop the wrong way. So instead of left he goes right, to the middle of no where. The cop makes him get out and kneel down on the ground. He puts his revolver in his mouth and told him, “This is it. This is how it ends.” The guy starts crying and pisses all over himself. Swearing to god he’d leave her alone.
So, the cop tells him to be quiet. That he needed to think about what he was gonna do here. The asshole listened. Goes still and real quiet. They stood there for a while. The cop acting like he’s thinking it through. Prince charming kneeling in the dirt with piss down his pants. After a few minutes, he takes the gun out of his mouth and says, “So help me, if you ever touch her again…”
A warning. The cop was just trying to do the right thing. But 2 weeks later the guy killed her. Of course. Caved her head in with a blender. When the cops got on scene there was so much blood they could taste the metal.
Moral of the story is, the cop chose a half measure. When he should’ve gone all the way. A mistake he would never make again.
In life, we compromise all the time. Yet, in the pursuit of major goals, in big moments, half measures are death. Go all in or not in at all. That is the path to success.
I'm a jack-of-all-trades. I enjoy doing different things every day. Chasing different interests and goals. Yet, I learned this lesson a while back. When you focus on too many things at once, you don't get the results you want in any of them. The more things you try to do simultaneously, the fewer results you will achieve in any one domain. Diluted focus gets diluted results.
My thinking has now changed. I heard the line, "No half measures," and that stuck with me. I now believe half measures yield null outcomes. You don't get diluted results. Or half results. Rather, you get no results.
I've been plagued by half measures. Serving multiple masters and splitting my focus, jumping from one thing to another. I've come to realize that this is a cursed approach because you feel like you are trying all the time. It feels like you're working non-stop to achieve something in 4 different domains. Yet, compromising on one means not getting results in any. Your attention is split. It's too much task switching. Too many goals at a single time. Split focus, split effort, and no results.
People who are mono-maniacal get further. They hyperfixate on the one thing that matters most and ignore everything else. No distractions. No half measures.
I used to think that pursuing multiple missions was a smart move. It was hedging my bets. If one play didn't work then one of the others would. I was wrong. There is a cost to everything. A price must always be paid. If we put time, effort, and energy towards one thing it means it's not put towards another.
You want to get in shape? The cost is going to the gym and eating healthy. That takes time and effort.
You want a strong relationship? The cost is time and effort.
You want to build a business? Time and effort.
When you spend your time and effort on one thing, you pay for less progress in another domain. There is always a sacrifice. The laws of thermodynamics apply.
So how do we overcome this? How do we become singularly focused? We simply choose what to pursue. We admit that we want one thing more than another. Death to everything except the one. We sacrifice, for a period of time, to get the results that we desire.
There's a quote from 300, the movie, that reminds me of this principle. As Leonidas is preparing to leave, his wife says to him, "Either come back with your shield or on it."
This will be my new practice. Focus on one thing only. Quadruple down until the results I want on that one goal are achieved. Then on to the next. No more diluted focus. No half measures. Either you win or you die. But focus on one mission only.