One of the things I’m not very good at is repetition.
My pursuit of progress and interestingness means I look for change and get bored with sameness. I value the stability of my core beliefs and the mission of my company. That doesn’t change. But in action, and especially words, I bore myself if I repeat things too much.
It’s easy to believe that everyone already knows what’s already been said, so rather than repeating or rewording it, let’s move on to saying some new stuff.
But it’s not true. There are few things more powerful than repetition when it comes to trying to make a dent in the universe.
My MO is to write or speak about something I’ve been stewing on, put a lot of energy into it, then be done with it and move on to the next thing. I assume it’s fully integrated into everyone’s brain and everyone remembers it. But they don’t. It requires repetition.
That’s hard for me. I’ve got to find the balance between rejecting repetition just because I’m bored and becoming repetitive to the point of phoniness and stagnation. Since I don’t struggle with the latter, I suspect fear of it is just an excuse to not get better at repeating myself.
It’s not a value in and of itself, but for some of the stuff I want to accomplish – like changing the way people approach their careers – the odds of success are much higher if I get better at repeating key messages.
I don’t want to become a bore to myself, but I could probably get a bit more repetitive before I reach that threshold. The paradox is that I dislike repetition because I like change, but deeper change requires repetition.