A belated welcome to 2016!
I enjoy watching the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), you know, the sport where two people get into a cage and proceed to punch, kick, elbow, wrestle and submit each other into a bloody pulp. Which is kind of like a more civil version of social media.
When a fighter becomes a champion, one thing that often happens is that they cease to be exciting. Many times you’ll find an otherwise great fighter reduced to simply trying to outpoint their opponent. In other words, fighting to not lose as opposed to fighting to win.
Reflecting on this, I think that in some ways, information security has fallen into the same pattern. Only doing the minimum to meet compliance requirements is the same as point-fighting. Sticking to old and often outdated technologies and processes is playing it safe.
Perhaps I’m stretching the analogy a bit too far – but the point I guess I’m trying to make is that sometimes you have to loosen up a bit. Not be reckless – but also not be afraid to re-evaluate where you are and take some chances.
I, myself am not immune to this. I’ve found myself recently procrastinate writing a blog or make a video. A lot of it comes down to an increased fear of failing – failing to live up to my own expectations.
There was a point I was trying to make when I started this. I guess, there’s no easy way to overcome the paralysis that comes when you are more worried about not losing than you are about winning. First you need to recognise the lies you tell yourself, put your energy and focus into moving away from it while accepting that it’s OK to fail when doing so.
For myself, at least, it means I’ll try to make a schedule and stick to it to blog / vlog more frequently and meet the targets I’ve set for world domination (but I’ll settle for a continent or two).
PS: This is about as close to a new years resolution that I’m ever going to get.
Javvad Malik 