A few weeks back I came across multiple articles about an interesting phenomenon called Pike Syndrome. For those non-fisherman out there, a Pike is carnivorous fish and one of the most ferocious known to man. A team of scientists decided to perform a study placing the Pike on one end of a large tank, placing a glass barrier in the middle of the tank, and on the other side of the tank they put these delicious little tiny fish that the Pikes love to eat. You can imagine the Pike did just about anything to get to the fish. Slamming into the glass, trying with all of its effort to break through, but the Pike was unable to break the glass. After some time the Pike gave up, and sank to the bottom of the tank. Sometime later the scientist removed the glass barrier and allowed the fish to swim in the same tank as the hungry Pike. Surprisingly the fish could swim next to the Pike, hang out right in front of the Pikes face, and sure enough the Pike eventually died even though it had all the food it needed to survive.
Now the Pike is a fish, so we are going to let them off the hook this time “no pun intended.” As intelligent adults, what is our excuse? Each day we allow barriers, real and imaginary, to prevent us from attaining our goals in life personally and professionally. We create these barriers tricking ourselves into believing that we will eventually accomplish our goals at some “perfect” time in the future that doesn’t exist. You have heard the list… I want to lose weight, I want to go back to school, I want to get out of this dead end job, I want to be a better spouse, parent, etc… A manager once told me, “You’re either growing or dying in your professional and personal life, only you can decide which it is.”
So how do we avoid Pike Syndrome? We remove the barriers!!! We get creative, we stop being complacent, and we strive to make ourselves better each and every day. The best way to do this is to do more! Read, take classes that build upon your profession, get out and network, take care of your body and mind. This is just some of the ways we can achieve our goals and remove those real/imaginary barriers in our daily lives.
“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.”
Jim Rohn