Did You Know that Apathy is a Silent Killer?

by Rick White, President 180BIZ                                                      (Estimated Read Time 4 minutes)

This episode is about APATHY. It's a silent killer. Apathy is a state of being. It's a state of feeling. It's where there's no ambition, desire, action, or movement. Apathy is giving up. Apathy, I truly believe, comes from disappointment and frustration. You have a dream; you have an expectation. Not hitting those expectations repeatedly causes you to give up. It kills your dreams, it kills relationships, it kills potential. This is where that little voice inside says, “I can't do it. I'll never be able to do it. I'm not smart enough. I'm not good enough.” And it's not true. Apathy is such a bad place. 

Ben Franklin once said, “Most men die at 25, we just don’t bury them until they are 70.” What he meant by that is we give up. We stop growing, we stop trying, we stop learning. We stop pushing and getting better. Every season in our lives is a lesson in learning how to accept, adapt, and change. If you have this situation where you feel like you've been giving up, I'm going to tell you where it's coming from. See, you're going to tell yourself a lie and you're going to tell yourself it's because your dream is too big. Think about that for a second. Your dream is too big. It's too big. I'm not good enough. I'm not able to do this. Why was I ever thinking that wasn't the truth?

Your unreasonable expectations create your apathy.

Here's what is going on. Your expectations are unreasonable. Your expectations are unfair. It's your expectations that create your apathy. Back in the day, I had something pretty traumatic happen at the shop, and I ended up not killing anybody. So I thought, I'm going to reward myself. I bought myself a set of golf clubs. So, I went to the range, and I had become completely apathetic about it. Why? Because I picked up the golf club I had the expectation I was going to be able to hit the ball like Tiger Woods. I know that's ridiculous. Intellectually, I know that. But emotionally, I just had this expectation. I can do it. I'm going to make it happen. But it doesn't work that way.

What I want you to do to fix apathy is recognize you're there, you're disconnected, you're disengaged, you are depressed. You have negativity keeping you down.  

First, dream big but set realistic expectations.

First. I want you to dream big, but then I want you to set realistic expectations. If it's something you've never done before, if it's something you've never gone through before, how can you expect a positive result? Allow yourself to crawl. You're going to allow yourself to suck when you first start. And then as you do it repeatedly, you get better and better. So, what you want to do is dream big, but then have expectations in the beginning. The expectations shouldn't be on achievement. It should be on learning.

Next, create a path of learning.

Next, I want you to put a path of learning together. What are you going to do? What are you going to need? And sometimes you need someone from the outside who will help you see what's going on, to help you see that path, because there will be times when you can't. I was talking to someone who referred to their shop as a dumpster fire. Then were talking to another shop owner and they were just revved up. They were hitting all the right things, things to talk about. They were pointing out stuff, and then suddenly, they didn't feel like their shop was a dumpster fire any longer. It was better than that.

Finally, use results as a ruler but judge on progress.

And finally, I want you to use results. I want to use results as a ruler, but measure or judge yourself on effectiveness, on progress, because as long as you’re getting better, that's awesome. So what I want to do is measure the progress. I want to see the progress, and I want to celebrate it.  If I see progress, there's hope in the future, and that's what I'm looking for. And in the process of that, I want to reward the growth. So, what I'm saying is stop using your destination as the judgment zone use the progress, and reward the growth.