A tool is only as good as the one who uses it.
All tools are the right tools, they just need to be given the best job suited to their functions.
Using the tools available to you will help you maximize your effort toward your goals. Sometimes you’ll have the proper tools. Other times you won’t and you’ll have to adapt and make due with what’s available to you.
If you go snowboarding in powder country, and need a tool to dig yourself out or to make a jump, a shovel is the tool you want. But if you don’t have a shovel, you improvise and use the snowboard itself as a shovel.
When you have the proper tool for the task at hand, the job is made easier, the work is lighter, you are more efficient and finish more quickly.
There are times when even the perfect tool for the job is not enough to get the job done because the one using the tool doesn’t have the necessary skill. For example, if I gave you all the tools necessary to build a house, you may not be able to do it. Not because you don’t have the tools, but because you don’t have the skill.
The effectiveness and usefulness of a tool is directly correlated to our ability to use or adapt the tool.
Adapting tools for other uses is creative and sometimes necessary. Inventions and discoveries often come about because of the creative adaptation of a tool purposed for something else.
Here’s an article listing common tools that were first invented for space exploration.
The lack of proper tools often becomes an excuse for not taking action or not doing what you want to do. Don’t let it happen to you.
Remember, tools are only as good as your use or adaptation of them.
Beginning photographers often refrain from taking pictures or building their photography business because they believe their cheap camera is not the proper tool. They fixate on a shiny and expensive camera, and say, “If I just had x camera I would take quality pictures.” Orr “Once I get that expensive camera, I’ll be able to charge higher rates.”
But as the video below demonstrates, you can get excellent results with a cheap camera, and you can get poor results with an expensive camera.
A camera is only as good as the person using it.
Challenge yourself to maximize your use of the tools available to you. Challenge yourself to improve your skills.
Featured Photo by Todd Quackenbush on Unsplash.