Lessons from a dog: When to push yourself

Doug Phares | for E&P Magazine

I firmly believe that wisdom can be found anywhere, and I recently made a discovery while walking my dog. As the primary dog walker, I tend to take us around three basic routes. The first is a quick around-the-block, a 10-minute route where he can sniff and do his business, and I don’t have to invest a ton of time into a longer walk. The second option is a path about a mile around a park where he can enjoy sniffing the trees.

He's happy with either of these options, but sometimes I choose a third option. Funnily, this third option starts the same as the first two, but at a certain point, my dog realizes that we’re going on a longer walk, and he starts to fight me on it to try and get me to turn around and head for home. Once he gets over that and accepts that we're doing a longer walk, he continues along as normal and has no problem finishing the walk.

The through line with all three routes is that he’s happy enough to go along once he knows our path. He also knows that we prefer sidewalks, so although we may be in the middle of a crosswalk, he lunges for the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street — even when that almost got the both of us hit by a bus.

My point is that my dog can recognize patterns and knows that two paths are comfortable, and one path pushes him. Generally, he will express a preference for one of the easier walks. More than that, he knows how to recognize and set out a path for sidewalks, even if that's not where we should go.

This dog will knock you over the second he thinks he can go for a walk, then drag you back home the second he feels the walk is over. Believe it or not, this isn’t just one long ad for your local dog shelter. It occurred to me last week, when he made a very good attempt at tripping me, that this isn't too dissimilar from work patterns.

In business, it’s normal to have certain established patterns. You probably know what the start of the day, week or even month is supposed to look like. At work, we tend to have a few different modes of operating. We can make the light and easy choice, go for a middle-of-the-road, manageable route, or push through with the hard choice and possibly accomplish something significant.

The most common option is to pick one of the two easier routes. And even when you make the hard decision and choose the more difficult path, there are still pitfalls to watch out for. Because when you’re pushing yourself, you’ll often spy the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Making a break for that familiar route could put you directly in front of an oncoming city bus.

Even with these risks, though, it’s more often than not worth it to push yourself to take the more challenging path. Very little growth is going to happen on a quick, 10-minute walk around the block. You can enjoy stability on the normal, medium walk, but accomplishment only comes with the long walk and the prospect of doing something difficult.

When you’re in the middle of doing something hard, it can be tempting to look back and think, “Man, I could sprint for home and be done with this hard thing.” But unless you push through it, you can’t enjoy the rewards of doing something strenuous, breaking patterns, or discovering a different path.

If you are the boss or in a leadership role, you have to be the one to balance the normal with the need to achieve. You have to be the one to decide whether your team needs the easy week or can make the leap to the big idea. One could argue that “making others do the hard” is easier than pushing yourself. However, good managing is not constantly pushing but balancing for maximum output. The rule applies whether this is “you doing you” or you running a Fortune 500 company.

While the calendar doesn't mark today as National Take Your Pet to Work Day, I hope you take this as a reminder that easy doesn’t necessarily mean good and certainly doesn't mean growth. So go out, get lost and don’t turn for home when things get scary.

Doug Phares is the former CEO of the Sandusky News Group. He currently serves as managing director of Silverwind Enterprises, which owns and provides management services to small businesses. He can be reached at doug@silverwind.biz.