Why “Stay in your lane” hurts you and everyone around you

Take a second and think about living in a way that truly honors the four LIFE principles of love, integrity, fellowship, and excellence.

Think about how many situations each day, you can apply one or more of them.

Was your answer, “they only apply in this area and this time”?

I didn’t think so.

As our nation faces division, fear, and conflict I’ve been hearing – and have been told myself – what I think is the worst LIFE advice you’ll ever get. It is meant to help us focus, to not step on toes that we don’t understand but its real effects are so much bigger and so much worse.

What is that advice? “Stay in your lane.”

I’ve thought a lot about it in the past few weeks and realized how many times I’ve been told something to the tune of “stay in your lane” in relation to my career, thoughts, and ideas. The people who counseled me as such wanted me to focus on one thing. To make a goal and work hard to accomplish it. Not to get distracted by too much at one time. I also realized how often I followed the advice and the detrimental effects it has had on my journey without me even realizing it.

Last year I read David Epstein’s great book, Range. At the time, I loved it because I tend to believe early specialization in sports, career, or really anything is a life hack gone wrong. But this week, I revisited it and was blown away again. The basic premise is that those who expand their thinking and experiences triumph in a world that glorifies choosing a single path and staying on it no matter what. Put another way, Epstein seemed to find, staying in your lane was often the worst way to be fulfilled or successful.

So what are the risks of following the “stay in your lane” line of thinking to your LIFE? Glad you asked. Here are just a few of the many that I have seen in myself with ideas from Epstein to help:

1.It stunts your growth

If you stay in your lane, you can grow but only linearly. A simple analogy is finances. If you have a good job, and you stay in that lane, you might grow with promotions, but it will be slow and predictable. Instead, if you keep that income but also invest in something, your income can begin to expand exponentially without the boundary of time and corporate policy.

Staying in your lane ensures you’ll stay the same today as you were yesterday.

If you refuse to shift with any of the four principles, you stagnate and the purpose of growth is shadowed. To love, maintain integrity, build fellowship, and pursue excellence you must adapt and grow when you get new information. Staying in your lane ensures you won’t listen well when your Council members speak, be open to useful feedback, and you’ll stay the same today as you were yesterday.

2. It limits your agency and voice

By staying in your lane, you remain silent to 99% of the world and your Council brothers. You can quickly feel as if you don’t matter and you stop using your agency to make the world a better place. My friend, Zach Mercurio recently wrote an article on the need we have to matter to a bigger cause and to others. The LIFE Council is designed with the undercurrent of knowing we matter. But to matter, you must contribute, and the best way to do that is to get out of your lane here and there.

To matter, you must contribute, and the best way to do that is to get out of your lane here and there.

3. It assumes your inability

I know that no one who has given me “stay in your lane” advice meant it to do this but one result has been an internal struggle to believe in myself. When people told me to stay in my lane, they assumed subconsciously that I wasn’t able to, or at least shouldn’t, expand my mind and my mission. The underlying message is, “you can’t handle thinking beyond this boundary” or “you really don’t have anything meaningful to add over there.” If you enter the LIFE Council work with this kind of attitude, you’re doomed from the start. Believe in yourself and each other to do more and be more through your relationship.

4. You limit yourself to be a victim of self-confirmation

Look around. In 2020, we as a collective society have a lot of issues to solve. We’ve done some very cool things in the past 100 years, but we aren’t yet at the ideal. Is it realistic then to ask people to focus on one career, one issue, or one problem to solve? I don’t think so. We need people in the LIFE Council who are genuinely curious, not out to make their points stronger and stronger. Epstein wrote, “They (people with range) are also extremely curious and don’t merely consider contrary ideas, they proactively cross disciplines looking for them.” Wait, so you need to actively seek information that runs contrary to your beliefs? Yes. If you want to solve real problems in your LIFE and make an actual contribution to the world, yes. Please, yes.

We need people in the LIFE Council who are genuinely curious, not out to make their points stronger and stronger.

I fear “stay in your lane” is not only dangerous for your own life but for society. Forms of “stay in your lane” have been used for centuries across geographic regions to maintain inequitable power balances. Entire groups of people have been told to not move outside of the social boundaries placed around them. They’ve been told they aren’t smart enough, strong enough, capable enough to bring change so might as well stay quiet and do your job. I experienced it as a young faculty member when I was silenced by older colleagues. I’ve watched one of my best friends be told to not act a certain way and “stay in the lane” of their racial identity. I’ve read about amazing people like Viktor Frankl who refused to listen to the oppressive voice of “stay in your lane” to then only realize how they are an exception, not the rule.

We need the LIFE Council as individuals and as a collective to counter this kind of thinking and action. When we learn to love and build fellowship, these types of divides and power struggles show their uselessness to the mission of growth and betterment.

In our modern world, “stay in your lane” poses a real danger to maintain systemic inequality. Let’s be part of the solution, not the problem.

So, next time you’re told to “stay in your lane” put that blinker on and start moving over. I think you’ll find a ten-lane highway where you thought a one-lane road was. You’ll see that by switching lanes, you get a new view of the ocean beyond the guardrail that blocking it before. You’ll find more cars on the road and lessons in the ones moving in the opposite direction. And next time you want to tell someone to stay in their lane either overtly or not, stop. You don’t know their lane or why they should be there. Ask questions and encourage others to explore other lanes because, “we learn who we are only by living, not before.”

Weekend Challenge

Let’s make having range, actionable. Let’s switch lanes even for a moment this weekend. I’m going to give you a couple of options, but first, go get Epstein’s book and take a look for yourself. Most of us believe in specialization because it’s what we’ve always done and that’s never a good reason to continue something.

Ways to leave your lane and get better this weekend:

1. Have an uncomfortable conversation with someone who looks different than you. I’ve loved Emmanual Acho’s recent Social Media series, “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man” where he and people such as Matthew McConaughey or Chip & Joanna Gaines sit down and ask real, vulnerable questions about race. Check it out as a model, and then seek out conversation for yourself (pro tip: people with range are great learners, so listen to learn not to argue). If you’re not sure how to go about it, here’s a podcast from Simon Sinek on just how to have these types of conversations.
2. Read a piece of news from a source that counters your own beliefs. If you’re a regular reader of the New York Times, check something out from the Washington Post. If you watch Fox on the regular, watch something produced by MSNBC. Remember, we are actively seeking things that counter us. Here is a helpful media bias graphic to help you find something.
3. Sketch out your life for a week. What do you do, read, talk about, listen to? Take stock of the fact that you are already living with range and begin to capitalize on it. Maybe a passion of yours could become a side-hustle. Or maybe you can get involved in your community in a new way. Do some research on the interests you have that seem to be on the fringes and explore one more deeply.  This is what I did with fitness recently and it sparked me to start sharing more and training for endurance events – something I’ve never done but now love.

*If you’re curious as to my own experience with “stay in your lane”, and one small motivation for this post, here’s a bit of my story:

The LIFE Council lives on an assumption of growth, vulnerable conversations, and fellowship. If you stay in your lane, you can’t participate in any of the three. People will tell me I’m wrong. They’ll say, “sure, but you have to focus and have a niche.” I see their point but I’m not on board. I am part of the small percentage of people who have driven specialization to the extreme by getting a Ph.D. Earning such a degree is quite literally an exercise in not having range. But I refused to listen. I was never combative about it, but every time I got a “stay in your lane” comment, I was energized to do just the opposite. My final project was a culmination of my time as a middle school teacher, strength and conditioning coach, management consultant, and leadership researcher. It wrapped my identities of teacher, learner, athlete, friend, son, Christian, and even fly fisherman all into one. I chose to stick my head out of the tower and look around at what the world needed. And guess what? In the end, it was well-received across disciplines and, more importantly, I was confident that I was true to my whole self. It wasn’t perfect and I didn’t win any awards, but I wrote a unique paper that crossed disciplines in search of wisdom instead of knowledge.