A couple of years ago, I took a class at Stanford with some of the guys at work. The class was called: Excellence is no Accident: Mental Skills Training for Work, Sports and Life. There was a group of about 7 of us and the professor asked us to pick a goal that we could accomplish over the course of the class.
The interesting thing was that we were all struggling with what to pick. The fun part about taking a night course at Stanford is having dinner in downtown Palo Alto before the class (ok, and maybe a glass of wine too). So we were sitting at dinner and we were all struggling over what our goal should be. It struck me that all the people I was with are very accomplished professionals. Many of them are project managers who have run multi-million dollar projects for years. They know exactly how to execute and achieve an outcome. But sometimes the hardest thing to do isn’t getting what you want, but deciding what you want.
So, I picked a goal. I set a goal to be able to do a set of 20 pull-ups. Just something simple that I could work on. Now, I suck at pull-ups. I always have. I had a hard time doing 2 or 3 in a row. So, it wasn’t an easy goal, but it was something.
So here is what I learned. The most important thing, is just get moving. When you set out on the journey, you won’t be granted some amazing vision of exactly what you want to achieve in life. You aren’t going to have some divine inspiration that tells you exactly what you are meant to be or meant to do. I kept waiting for that and it never came. But when I started moving, just doing my pull-ups every morning and making small gains, I began to realize that getting started is the hardest part. Once you are moving and growing, more opportunities become available. It’s like that thing they tell you in driver’s ed in high school. If you slam on the brakes and your tires aren’t moving, you can’t steer the car. It’s like that in life. If your wheels aren’t moving, you won’t be able to change directions.
Getting moving is like a flashlight when you are walking down a dark road. It won’t show you the whole road, but you see far enough ahead to be able to make course corrections.
So, I started making some small daily changes in my life to get me moving. I started walking every day to begin getting healthier. I started listening to Podcasts and Audio Books on my walks to begin improving my mind and get new ideas. I began writing and blogging to get my ideas out and help clarify my thinking. I began setting some smaller goals to begin having some wins and change my mindset. All of these things have helped me to really start seeing what my bigger purpose wants to be. Just the start of doing a few little things consistently over time has really changed my outlook and helped me understand better what I want to do with my life and what legacy I want to leave on this earth.
So, while I have only been able to hit 10-15 pull-ups so far, I know I will get to 20 some day. But it taught me a lesson about not waiting to know exactly what I want before I begin. Inspiration is not the power to get you moving, inspiration is the product of the journey.
