Steve Jobs once said: “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it.”
I agree. We take a lot of things as fact, but often one person wrote each of them, usually very quickly, often as a guess.
For example: a job posting says “5+ years of experience” and you have three. It reads like a hard line, so most don’t apply. But think about where the number came from. A hiring manager had a box to fill in and typed 5 because it sounded about right. They’d hire someone with three who can clearly do the job.
The same goes for the rules we carry around about what we’re allowed to do next. Like that you need experience in a field before you can get into it. Usually you can get that experience yourself, starting today. If you want to be a writer, you can start a blog.
So when a rule is in your way, find out who set it and ask whether it still has to be that way. Surprisingly often the honest answer is that it was made up!
