Sturgeon’s Law & Why You Should Be Kind To Yourself
"Four-fifths of everybody's work must be bad" ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1890.
#079
Hello friends! 👋🏼
Welcome to 2025 🎉
As we look forward to an amazing 2025, thank you for 2024. For being part of this journey, subscribing, reading & commenting, and sharing with your circle.
As we step into this brand new year, filled with the usual buzz of resolutions and fresh starts, I want to talk about something that often gets overlooked: Self-Kindness.
We're bombarded with messages about hustling harder, achieving more, and constantly striving for "bigger and better." In the race to the top, it's easy to become our own harshest critic, pushing ourselves to the brink and berating ourselves for every perceived failure.
But here's the truth: There's already enough negativity in the world. Why add to it by being unkind to yourself?
Enter…
Sturgeon’s Law
"90 percent of everything is crap"— Sturgeon’s Law.
In the mid-1950s, Theodore Sturgeon who was a science fiction writer came up with an observation which was that 90% of science fiction is crap.
But the observation (now regarded as a law) extends beyond science fiction. As English journalist and novelist wrote in 1890 “Four-fifths of everybody's work must be bad. But the remnant is worth the trouble for its own sake"
Taking this a step further, the former British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, stated that “Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense”
Let’s take this a ‘lil further.
90% of the books you will read this year will be crap
90% of the people you meet will be “useless”
90% of your projects will either fail or be deadends
90% of your goals will either not be achieved or have very little value when achieved
“But the remnant is worth the trouble for its own sake"
The remaining 10% will make up for everything.
Venture Capitalists know this. Most of their investments in startups will fail. The occasional success that becomes the Facebooks, Ubers, or Tinders of this world will make up for the failures.
As in venture capital, it is in the corporate world. Most “high flyers” can only point to 1 or 2 outsized successes. However, the many failures along the way to arriving at the successes were all part of the journey.
What Does This Mean For You?
Be kind to yourself.
Why?
Most of the things you try won’t work out.
Most of your projects will be dead ends.
Most of your job-hunting activities will fail.
You have little to no control over these things. What you have full control over is how you talk to yourself in the midst of it all.
Many of us say things to ourselves that we can’t even say to our enemies.
“I’m such a terrible person”
“I hate my life. I am so unlucky”
“I suck at interviews”
“Recruiters always reject me. Why should I bother applying”?
This year, I challenge you to be kinder to yourself, to watch how you talk to yourself, and to listen to what you say to yourself.
According to Mikael Krogerus & Roman Tschäppeler, negative self-talk takes one of these 3 ways:
Generalization- “I have already been left twice- people will always leave me”
Rash Conclusions- “Why doesn’t she call? I think she doesn’t like me”
Self-blame- “I am a bad father”
Which one of these are you most guilty of?
If you can’t be kind to yourself, why expect kindness from others?
Till next week,
— ❤️ Azodo from Workplace.
Just be nice, be kind to yourself. Very important .Thank you for sharing as always
Thank you so much for this!