Kotter Instills a Sense of Urgency

I started on my MBA applications full swing two weeks ago. But once I was done with my first set of Wharton essays - things drastically slowed down.
A sort of lethargy set in - since I (naively?) felt the writing of essays was close to complete. It was my old enemy: my escape mentality, kicking in. I would keep myself away from the essays by surfing or sleeping - and didn't feel like opening my essay notebook.

After a week of this, I tried weaning myself away from this rut I had landed in.
To start with, I started staying away from known distractions: surfing, computer games and sleep.
Also, I watched videos about Wharton on youtube (check out this inspiring speech by Warren Buffett) - a low effort way of relaxing and getting back to the flow at the same time.

Last, I made a breakthrough when I saw the book: 'A Sense of Urgency' by John Kotter.
The title intrigued me - and I listened to introductory videos on Kotter and his book on Amazon and Youtube.



Kotter's philosophy started making sense to me: I realized that anytime a goal is near - complacency sets into me. The danger of complacency is clear: It silently robs me of success. In this case it was my MBA essays - and also see its effect on my work.

And so, I'm working now to instill a sense of urgency for my MBA prep. Not just that, I'm also going to try to instill this sense in my work and my team - we've started feeling we're almost at the peak of our performance - and that's not a good thing! I can see this mantra making a big difference to my life already.