You Are Exactly Where You Are
If you don’t know where you are, you most certainly do not know where you are going.
In the year 1707 a bunch of ships smashed into each other and sank causing the British government to offer a $25,000 prize (about $2 million today) to anyone who could develop a chronometer (a fancy clock) that could be used at sea (pendulums don’t work well being tossed around on a boat). After about 5 years a dude named John Harrison came up with a chronometer about the size of a small refrigerator that worked reasonably well. 25 years later he came up with one the size of a pocket watch(!) and he took home the prize.
Why would we humans spend so much money and allocate so much time developing a stupid chronometer (and why am I even talking about it)? Welp, having a good chronometer on a boat can help a sailor more precisely determine their position when they can’t see land (it’s a longitude thing) and that, it turns out, is valuable information.
Knowing where you are is as important, if not more important, than knowing where you are going. Seriously. If you are trying to get to Bermuda, it is wildly helpful to know whether you are starting from the Bahamas or Boston. If you are getting directions from one, you are going to end up in a vastly different place if you start from the other.
To put it another way: If you don’t know where you are, you most certainly do not know where you are going.
I am here to assure you that you are exactly where you are. Everything you have done in the past has led up to this moment when you can (and will) influence your future. Therefore it is a good idea to stop every once in a while, not just to smell the flowers, but to make an assessment of where you are so you can more accurately determine where you are going1. You need to take a look at your chronometer, as it were.
What we need to do is measure our “tudes”. And, because I like to make shit up, we’re going to use a Tudemeter.
THE TUDEMETER
“Tude” is a suffix meaning “state, condition, or quality” (I will be using it as a prefix here - mind=blown). “Meter” is a suffix meaning “measure” (I will be using it as the ancient Greeks intended). Since we are trying to measure the state, condition, or quality of ourselves at a given moment, we’re going to call this exercise “The Tudemeter”2.
Below are three tudes you should take an account of. They will give you a good idea of your present position.
APTITUDE
What are you good at? Take a deep dive and make a list of the things you just naturally do well. While you’re at it, list the things you like to do. Think of the activities that you tend to lose yourself in. No, I am not talking about how you procrastinate. I’m talking about those tasks that you start doing and when you look up half the day is gone (in a good way). It turns out that the activities we are good at are activities we don’t mind doing.
Similarly, take stock of what you are NOT good at and what you do NOT like to do. This will tell you that you might have a trait you need to work on - or activities that you are better off to avoid.
ATTITUDE
Where is your head at? Are you in a good space, or not? Here you want to make a list of all the good things in your life - and all the shitty ones. You want to figure out what is making you happy right now and what is pissing you off. It turns out that the stimuli that make us happy are the stimuli we want to lean into. If your happy list is longer than the “pissing off” list you are in a good space to get things done. If it is the other way around…well, we know what direction you need to be heading (away from that!)
FORTITUDE
What is your appetite for change? This almost comes off as a risk assessment: there is a moment when the realities of the status quo are overcome by the desire for change. After analyzing your aptitude and attitude, if you find that you are doing things you do not like and that weigh low on the happiness scale, it may be time for a change.
If we were to graph it over time, your level of fortitude is probably a fairly steady line. Your level is somewhere between either strong-minded or weak-hearted. When your attitude & aptitude levels fall below that line it is time to make a plan.
OTHER TUDES
You are not limited to just the tudes I listed here. You can slap “tude” on damn near anything and turn it into the state, condition, or quality of that thing. Here are some other tudes you may want to consider:
TOPOTUDE (totally made that up) - Do you like where you are geographically?
JOBITUDE (this one, too) - What do you think of your job?
GRATITUDE (I did NOT make this up) - What are you thankful for?
The goal for all of this is to take inventory of where you are right now and make an informed decision on what you might like to adjust. Knowing your tudes will help inform not only where you are, but where you want to go and how to set a course to get there.
Even if you don’t have any plans to make any plans, you should figure out where you are so that you can at least maintain the status quo. I’ve talked about this enough that it should probably be its own essay. So, that is exactly what will happen. Stay tuned.
Businesses will do a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) to understand where and when to lean into their strengths, work on their weaknesses, chase opportunities and avoid threats. This could certainly be used as a personal analysis, but I think it works better for business. I mean, I would hate to think you have many threats.