This morning I saw a headline that I couldn’t not read:
“Alabama man survives being crushed two times in trash compactor”
That’s my people.
Alabama Man competes on the same level as Florida Man. Y’all didn’t know this but Lower Alabama may as well be Florida for all the geography and culture matters. We are siblings in a friendly rivalry for headline space.
Turns out it was a homeless guy sleeping in a dumpster who got picked up by the garbage truck and by a miracle (aka Mad Dog 20/20) he wasn’t crushed to death.
It’s an odd but otherwise kinda “meh” story.
That headline creates all the interest. You almost can’t help but read it in order to find out what the heck is going on down there in the South.
That’s called an “open loop”. The writer creates curiosity with a tease that dangles just enough bait to rope you in before dropping a cliffhanger. That tension of wanting to know more pulls you in to the article.
Creating tension is useful for all kinds of things.
It’s what makes muscle grow, for one thing. Tension created by training with resistance is one of the most powerful and important triggers for muscle growth.
One kind of tension I’m interested in is what Robert Fritz, a creativity and management consultant, calls “structural tension”.
This might be just as important as tension created in your muscles, as far as gains go.
Structural tension is the gap between what you want, your vision, and what you have in your present reality.
This tension acts like a stretched rubber band. Pull back on the band and it “wants” close the gap between the two ends.
Structural tension can change present reality in the direction of the vision.
You may understand a little more why I hammer the need for:
Honesty about where you are
Plus:
Clarity about where you want to go
The more honest you are about your present situation and the more clarity in your vision of where you want to be, the more tension you create.
That tension aims to resolve itself by propelling you toward the vision.
The more tension, the more energy you have pushing you toward what you want.
Structural tension stands behind all creative, productive change. Anyone who is getting anywhere is using structural tension even if they don’t consciously realize it.
You can pick up diets and workouts all the live long day.
If there’s no 1) honesty about where you are and 2) clarity in where you want to go, none of it matters.
You can do anything or nothing and achieve the same results.
If you don’t care where you end up, any road is as good as another.
Without tension there’s no energy to move you anyway.
All change begins with a personal vision plus honest attention to your current reality.
If you’re stuck and want some help with that, my email subscribers can always hit reply and let me know.
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Matt Perryman