Small Game Syndrome

If there is one thing that I teach Unacademy Leaders personally then that’s the notion of “Small Game Syndrome”. We just get lost in playing small games. It majorly happens because of the lack of Iconic Goals and secondly it happens because we forget on a minute to minute basis what our Iconic Goals are.

Let’s say for a Sales Associate Director the Iconic Goal is to become the SVP (Sales) in five years. The first and foremost thing that she should do is to write it down somewhere and read it every morning. She should absorb the fact that 70% of her energy should go towards achieving the Iconic Goal.

Now let’s say that the Sales Associate Director had an idea and for that she needed some funds. She goes to her Director and gets shot down. Now there are two games that she can choose:

• the small game of cribbing and complaining on how her great idea was shot down

• or the large game / where she realises that her manager is doing a mistake by not approving this idea / so she needs to actually try again / better presentation, better analysis, better communication / whatever it takes / because the only question that she should ask is: will this approval help me get closer to my Iconic Goal / is this helpful in my game? / then no I cannot be lost in the small game / I cannot let my mind worry about the small game / I cannot suffer from the small game syndrome

Small Games are easy. It’s easy to complain and crib. It’s easy to say that your manager did wrong by not approving your idea, but that doesn’t help you. It does not help you achieve your goal, so what’s even the point of complaining except to feel good in the short term. Except to avoid the pain of trying harder and smarter. Cribbing and saying that it’s someone else’s fault is much easier than trying 10x harder and smarter to get something done which is essentially helping you and bringing you closer to your Iconic Goal.

Sometimes it’s the tone, sometimes it’s the rejection, sometimes it’s the fact that you were not recognised for an effort where you should have, sometimes it’s your mind telling you that others are also wrong why am I being pointed out particularly. Whatever it is. It’s the small game syndrome that’s coming in your way of achieving your Iconic Goal.

It doesn’t matter.

The only binary question is: will cribbing help me achieve my iconic goal or will something else will?