Put a Stake in It

Pressure makes diamonds. Pressure requires performance. Pressure gives an elevated sense of focus and determination. Pressure also can be difficult. Pressure can be scary. Pressure can be a way to fail and reset. Self-prescribing pressure to your individual goals and pursuits can be the much-needed push that you need to achieve. Put a stake in what you want to do to help you learn faster and in a more focused way. The stake will add pressure, pressure that will force your mind to rapidly suck in knowledge leading to your performance.

By implementing a personal stake in the outcome, we will learn faster. Risk awakens the muscles that help us learn. If we desire the ability to cook quality meals but are not practicing this skill on a consistent basis, we need to implement a stake that forces us to produce. Choose to host a dinner party with your friends where you are the one cooking. This provides a stake, the cooked meal, and the reaction from your friends, and forces you to learn and iterate in order to produce the final product. If you want to follow the stock market and invest but always seem to wait for “better opportunities,” add a personal stake that gets you in the game. In this case, you could invest a small amount of money so you are personally invested in not only your time learning about stocks but also in the outcome of the performance of the stocks you choose.

These situations are two small, and unique cases but the underlying reasoning shines through. When we want to achieve, it helps to add pressure to our environment that will force us to act. Without action, we fail to learn and without a stake in the outcome, we can find ourselves failing to act. This methodology can be applied to nearly every pursuit or goal we have. Want to set a time for a specific running distance? Sign up for a race, that is your stake. Want to learn to play a musical instrument but struggle to practice? Tell your grandma you want to play her a song in a month’s time, that is your stake. The bigger the stake we have in the outcome, the more driven we will be to perform and learn faster. Pressure makes diamonds. We are the coal being compressed, waiting to shine. Find a stake and start the show. The outcome is in your hands.