Quote
“If it's not actionable, it's not a problem.”
— Bill Burnett & Dave Evans, in Designing Your Life (2016) · Designing Your Life →
Why it was said
Bill Burnett and Dave Evans use this line in Designing Your Life to introduce gravity problems: circumstances, like gravity itself, that cannot be changed and so are not really problems at all. They place it at the start of the design process, where accepting where you are comes before any attempt to move.
What it actually means
Some of what people call career problems are facts of life: the pay scale of a profession, the size of a market, a family obligation that is not going away. Treating those as problems to solve wastes years and breeds resentment. The line sorts them out. If nothing you do can change a situation, accept it as a constraint and design around it; if something can, it is a real problem and deserves your energy. The authors add a useful nuance: many situations that feel fixed are only very hard, and the honest work is deciding which kind you face.
How to use it
- 1List the three biggest obstacles in your career and mark each one 'can act on' or 'can only accept'.
- 2For each one you can only accept, write how you would design around it instead of fighting it.