"The Clarity Paradox"

We've all heard of the saying that "less is more." Personally, I've never really bought into the idea or experienced the "more" part of this saying (after all, "less" is generally, well, just..."less"), until today, after stumbling on an article called The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. In this article, the author, McKeown, talks about the idea of success, and the reasons why some find success while others simply don't. He attributes success (or lack of success) to something he calls "The Clarity Paradox," which, in a nutshell, claims that "success is a catalyst for failure." McKeown explains the paradox like this:

1. When we really have clarity of purpose, it leads to success.
2. When we have success, it leads to more options and opportunities.
3. When we have increased options and opportunities, it leads to diffused efforts.
4. Diffused efforts undermine the very clarity that led to our success in the first place.

After reading this, I have to admit that I see his logic. So many people (and organizations) reach a certain level of success, and find themselves with opportunities and options that they never had before; kind of like a kid in a candy store with too much money to spend. Unfortunately, what happens every now and then is that we spread themselves too thin (and sometimes make bad investments) in attempts to run after new opportunities.This, of course, is not to say that opportunities are a bad thing - we just need to make our decisions wisely and carefully to mitigate any negative outcomes. 

At this point, you may be asking yourself how one can maintain success without falling into the "Clarity Paradox." Luckily, McKeown gives three suggestions for his audience: 

1. Use more extreme criteria.
2. Ask: "What is essential?" and eliminate the rest.
3. Beware of the endowment effect.

If you want in-depth explanations of those suggestions, I encourage you to read McKeown's article, after all, they are his ideas, and they are conveyed much more clearly in his own words. In the end, if you remember nothing else, remember this: we need to stive to adopt a "disciplined pursuit of less" by "purposefully, deliberately, and strategically eliminating the nonessentials." I know this may seem like common knowledge to many of you, but the way I see it, this is pretty good advice not only for success in our careers, but for success in all aspects of our lives as well.