If You Want To Go Fast Go Alone, If You Want To Go Far, Go Together
There is an old African proverb that goes “if you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far, go together.
Initially when people hear this, they often think that the message is to make sure you have a group, work in teams, or don’t do things alone. And while there is definitely a time and place for that, I also think there is a time and place to go alone.
Today I want to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of going together, and alone, and how you can figure out which you need to be doing at any given moment.
Going Together
Whenever you are tackling a big or complicated task it is often best to do it with other people. Think about building a house. You don’t want to have to do everything on your own. You’d have to learn plumbing, electrical wiring, how to lay a foundation, and all sorts of stuff. So instead of going alone, you’d hire a team.
Another example may be that you are studying for an exam, or working on a particularly tuff homework assignment. Studying and working with a group of your peers can give you different ways of looking at the problem that you might not have thought about.
Someone may be able to teach you a new concept, or your may be able to helps someone out and solidify your own understanding by teaching them a concept. Having the ability to bounce our thoughts off of other people, and then have them challenged, is what allows us to grow and learn.
If you only study on your own you may miss read a statement that is at the foundation of understanding a concept, and as a result you think you understand what you are doing but in reality, you are completely wrong. I saw this, and fell victim to it, too many times in college and high school.
By studying with other people, any misconceptions you have will quickly be brought up, and you will be able to find the cause and fix it.
Going Alone
Going alone has its benefits as well.
When you are all alone you have the freedom to do whatever you want to do, you can make decisions in an instant and immediately act on it. There are no meetings or having to wait to make sure everyone is in agreement before moving forward.
Going alone in work, school, or sports can also have its upsides. With sports you can lift weights on your own and practice drills on your own anytime you want. In school you can study what you think is the most important, or quickly made decisions on projects.
Going alone can often be good whenever you are dealing with something that is simple, straightforward, easy, or requires immediate decision making.
The Dichotomy
Life isn’t so cut and dry such that you can make a decision to categorize certain things as always being better done in a group and certain things always being better done along.
In general, going alone can be extremely advantageous whenever you have to do small or non-complex things. The reason is that you are less likely to get stuck, or make a mistake, when working on those things, and the advantage of quick decision making makes it worthwhile. Whenever you take on something that is complex or large you should highly consider taking it on with someone else.
Having an additional person to check yourself against, hold you accountable, and help you come up with ideas can be crucial to overcoming difficult challenges that you never could have on your own.
At the same time, complex and large things can be broken down into smaller components, and some of those components are often better done alone.
In college whenever I had a big project or a test to study for, I always had a group, but I never spent 100% of my time working with the group. I always spent some time on my own. The reason is because working in a group can be chaotic, a lot of progress can be made in specific areas or in understanding, but it isn’t the place to hone in practices, thought processes, or concepts and master them.
I would always spend time working alone and get as far as I could before it became inefficient, then I would work with the group and we would make some major breakthroughs. Then I would work on my own until I became inefficient again, and again I would go back to the group. The cycle would repeat until the project was complete or it was time for the test.
Life isn’t as straight forward as we like to think. We can’t easily separate out going alone and going together, it takes a balance and a mixture of both in the majority of things we do.
How to know what to do
From now on, think critically whenever you are working alone or in a group. Are you in the right setting for what has to be done at that moment? Are you stuck or unsure? Then you should probably get with a group. Are you having trouble solidifying your knowledge, or are you board because the pace seems slow? then you should probably spend some time alone.
The key is that you have to become more self-aware. In becoming more self-aware you will increase your ability to see whether or not what you are doing at the moment is moving you forward at the fastest possible speed.
The best way to increase that self-awareness is to practice detaching and evaluating your progress. Overtime it will get easier and more automatic, to the point where you will automatically realize when you aren’t operating in the right place.
It won’t be easy, but life isn’t easy, so go out and practice. Work alone, work in groups, become more self-aware, and begin moving towards you goals and mission in life. Good luck.