It’s Not Critical

That important marketing or business challenge you’re wrestling with right now?

It’s not critical.

Emergency heart surgery is critical. That’s something going on in people’s lives right now.

The email you sent with a typo in it isn’t critical. Many won’t have noticed, others will for a moment then moved on. If it was the recipient’s name you got wrong, it’s not critical either, just apologise and let’s all move forward.

Inaccurately representing your target market isn’t critical. It’ll slow you down, it’ll yield marginal results, but you learn and grow, just as with any relationship. Remember it’s a relationship, treat it as such, and let’s all move forward.

Even a business on its last week of funds isn’t critical. It either makes it or it closes. There will be more opportunities for you, for it, and for those you work alongside. It’s a business (which can be restarted, reborn, broken into individual pieces to grow), not a human life (which can do none of those things).

Let’s go easy on the “critical” and on how seriously we take ourselves / our important work. It’s usually not “critical”. And it’ll probably benefit massively from you treating it (and those you work with) with a little more grace, patience, and long-term thinking.

Most of us do better work when the red alert siren isn’t whirring away in the background. It’s better work we’re looking for, right?