[Journal] 3 July 26

Hey 🙂

There’s a project sitting on my list right now that I keep telling myself I’m going to get to.

It’s not urgent. Nobody’s chasing me for it. But I’m interested in it, I like the idea of it, and if I’m honest, some part of me wants to be the one who builds it. Not because I’m the only one who could. Because I want to.

And that’s the bit I caught myself on this week.

I’ve got less time than I think I do. That’s just true. And every week I let this project sit on my list “for when I get to it,” it doesn’t move — because the things that only I can do always take the seat first, and they should. So the project doesn’t fail because it’s a bad idea. It fails because I never actually gave it away.

What I noticed is that somewhere along the way, wanting to do something had turned into believing I had to do it. Those are not the same thing. But they feel identical from the inside.

So here’s what I’m sitting with this weekend, and maybe it’s worth you sitting with it too:

Is there something in your business right now that you believe only you can do — and is that actually true? Or have you just never tested it?

Because here’s what I think is really going on when we hold on too tight to something:

It takes longer. Sometimes it never gets finished at all, because we’ve also got fifteen other things that only we can do.

It puts a lid on our team. Every time we do the thing ourselves instead of handing it over, we’re saying “I don’t think you’re ready for this” — even if we’d never say it out loud. And most people are more capable than we give them credit for. I’ll go further than that: I think most of us who lead teams are the actual lid on our team’s growth, not their own ability.

And it has a cost we don’t count. Every hour I spend on work someone else could do is an hour I don’t spend on the handful of things that genuinely only I can do.

So this weekend, I’m not telling myself to delegate everything. I’m just being honest about the one thing I’m gripping onto because I want to, not because I have to.

What would it look like to let someone else run with it? Not exactly how I’d do it. Not perfectly. Just run with it.

🗣️ 👀

Chris.