There is a very useful model in business that Anton is reasonably familiar with that is called the Theory of Constraints.
The basic premise is that you can lay out a business as a linear pipeline and identify the constraints at different points.
For example, the might be a constraint as to how many customers you can bring in and a constraint of how many orders you can fulfill.
The theory states that you need to prioritize in which order you resolve the constraints to maximize value. Otherwise you can actually make things worse.
For example, if the number of customers exceeds how many customers you can serve, and you bring in even more customers, you are fixing a problem that appears important on the surface, but in reality, you are making things worse because now you are adding unsatisfied customers who can lead bad reviews, etc.
Increasing your fulfillment capacity would be the most beneficial step in this scenario.
This seems obvious now, and that means that you have understood this.
The point we want to make is that you can apply the same theory to your life, your health, to your work, etc.
Make a list of constraints in your life and prioritize them.
For example, if you want to improve your physical health, the constraints might be exercise, diet, and sleep. However, if you are limited in sleep and diet, you are not going to get optimal results if you add a whole bunch of intense exercise that you can’t sustain.
Neither would it be beneficial to optimize sleep and diet without exercise. Or to intellectually learn how to exercise without actually doing it.
This sounds obvious now, but we see many of you struggle to get the results that you want because of how you allocate your time and energy and which constraints you work on.
We say this with love, not with judgment.
Often time this comes from a desire for comfort, because it is more enjoyable to optimize the things you like than the ones you don’t
Anton struggled with this for a long time in his business because he loves building products, design, and programming, but the bottlenecks that were limiting him were marketing and building a management team.
Simply put, it doesn’t matter how skilled you are in your field if nobody knows about you.
The theory of constraints helps you to find the path of least resistance.
Note that this is not the path of most comfort. Growth is uncomfortable.
Growth, in itself, is a skill. Which means you can improve it.
Weightlifting is more uncomfortable in the beginning when you don’t know what you are doing. As you learn how to train, that discomfort dissolves, though the discomfort of the progressive overload remains.
It is the same applying the theory of constraints to your life.
It forces you to look at what you want, why you want it, and whether you want to bear the consequences of the work it takes to get there.
What keeps you from your goals is fear of the transformation you have to go through to become the person who can achieve those goals.
It is fear of change, which is discomfort. Which is totally natural.
The way to overcome the fear is to face it. To look at it. To embrace it.
And we don’t mean to override it and shove it aside. That only works temporarily and doesn’t address the root issue.
The words in Dune are wise:
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
In other words: Feel it to heal it.
The theory of constraints is a good model/framework for all the work you are here to do. Explore it.