Don’t Criticize a Saw For Not Being a Hammer
Here’s the situation: you’ve declared your independence from a ruling country, knowing that doing so would trigger a death warrant with your name, and you’ve been chosen by your side to lead the approaching armed conflict.
Two other key points:
You have no army. You alone represent the entire armed forces.
The ruling country from which you’re declaring your independence happens to be the world’s leading military power.
This is the predicament George Washington faced in the Revolutionary War.
Washington considered three basic strategies:
Take the Offensive: He could assemble an army and take power to power on the battlefield. He did this at the start of the war in 1775...and failed miserably in the months that followed, most notably in and around New York City. Early in the war effort, Washington understood neither the challenge at hand nor his assets, among them a group of militia men, part-time citizen soldiers, not a well-oiled band of troops.
War of Posts: Washington could establish posts, or fortresses for inviting the enemy to bring the fight to him. While he had success with this strategy at the Battle of Bunker Hill, he faced a series of defeats in 1776 in and around New York City, rendering this entrenchment approach a failure.
Fabian Strategy: Washington frequently had expressed exasperation at his army of militia members, usually for not being more like the British army. But these were farmers with no military experience — they still had farms to run, and families to care for.
By knocking his army for what they weren’t, Washington was criticizing a saw for not being a hammer.
With time, Washington learned how to use his men for what they were, and to avoid misusing them: “We may expect every thing from ours, that Militia is capable of; but we must not expect from any, services for which Regulars alone are fit,” Washington wrote.
Thus, Washington employed the Fabian strategy, where pitched battles and frontal assaults are avoided in favor of wearing down an opponent through a war of attrition and indirection. He realized that his militia men could be militarily effective when used in a manner that played to their strengths: He let them fight near their own towns, amid familiar fields, forests, and hills, so that they would prove more resilient. He isolated British patrols and hit them when they were separated from the pack; he left cattle out in the open and ambushed the British as they tried to capture the herd, and he cut off supply lines. He hit them in the shadows and his strategy slowly and effectively turned back the British and helped America to victory and independence.
Don’t criticize a saw for not being a hammer. When I read that line in the book, it hit me like a ton of bricks. We are saws, sawing away at ourselves for not being hammers, and we do it ALL THE TIME.
We criticize ourselves because we aren’t who we think we should be. We don’t accept ourselves for who we are, but rather cast self-blame for deficiencies: “I’m not good enough because I suck at this, this, and that.” We discount the positives, minimize the strengths, compare ourselves to top performers and always fall short. We diminish what we’ve accomplished because it’s not the right experience.
An alternative is focusing on what you DO have and who you ARE. Appreciate what you’ve done, express gratitude for who you are, and do it every day. Write it down. And don’t just write it, feel it and mean it.
You have certain attributes that make you great. Be grateful, truly.
You have many blessings to be thankful for. Be thankful, truly.
Build on those strengths.
Of course, you’ll have areas you’ve targeted for improvement. Identify them, along with identifying your strengths. Put together a plan for growth. But finding purpose and joy begins with identifying who you are and accepting yourself in that way.
Start the process by identifying that you are saw.
And be grateful.
If you want to chat about history, hammers, or happiness through gratitude, I’d love to discuss.