Sharpening your razor

Steven Covey, in his “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People”, talks about the importance of ‘sharpening the saw’, as a metaphor for continuously improving your skill set and capabilities.  I was reminded of this today when I had to replace the foil and cutters in my razor.  It is something I do regularly and this one was only a bit over a year old and the cutters are supposed due  to be replaced at the two year mark.  However, the foil had become damaged and it was just as cheap to replace both at the same time.  So this morning I shaved with my revivified razor and was amazed by the difference.  It felt like a totally different experience.  Every morning I use it and every time it does its job, but what I didn’t realise was that every day it did it a little slower and a little worse.

It occurred to me that this often happens to us; things gradually change, perhaps getting a little worse bit-by-bit and we simply don’t notice because we are too close to see.  However, a new customer will see things as they are today not what they used be like when they were good.  Change happens all the time and all around us, both for better and for worse, and we need to be aware of this and to take action to use this positively. 

You have to act if you want to stop the ravages of time, and periodically you are offered the chance to improve things and it is smart to make the best of these ‘opportunities’ rather than feeling plagued by them.  I’ve needed to take my own medicine in this regard as I have just been told my boiler is about to die and this is my ‘opportunity’ to spend invest £6000 in an improved system…Happy Xmas!!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 11th, 2013 at 14:18 and is filed under Business Change, General, Hints, Tips & Techniques, Personal Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.