Kill The Big Leap
Here are big leaps performed by people close to me in the past few weeks:
- The canoeist who blazed the race course Saturday at the World Championships
- The friend at a party who lost 15 pounds
- The client who just secured a two plus million dollar investment for his organization
- The friend who was awarded an industry’s top recognition, though it seems to others she appeared out of nowhere
It’s hard not to be inspired.
Naturally, we want the big leaps too. In our work. In our relationships. In our health. In our creative pursuits. In our communities.
When we observe someone else’s life leap, we fail to process their mess-ups, hard days, and obstacles.
A life leap is not a first step
We only see a line from where we are to where we are not — which is a terrible first step.
In my own experience, I never made a life leap obsessing about the life leap. I had to let go and clear space to be more attentive to the small steps. Especially the first step.
In a world where inputs stream into our lives as the appearance of major successes, let’s dial it back to this — what is the anatomy of a good first step?
Mine looks like this:
The off-spring of “enough already”
Until the pain of not taking action overtakes the action of doing the same thing, I remain stuck.
Weird people do this
Weird = Different. Different = Challenge. Challenge = Steps Forward
Value of repetition
We meditate once, or cook a healthy meal one time and ask, “What good did this do?”
Resist cause and effect. Recognize the value of “Every Day.”
Simplicity
Nothing kills repetition like complexity.
Fear
If this didn’t scare you, you would have started already ← the story I told myself for years.
Three months from today is the first day of 2018. We will be bombarded with Motivators, Vision Board-ers, and “Goalies,” who interrupt us with the line from where we are to where we are not.
But, there is a defensive measure. It’s called Start Now.
Big leaps are a function of what we practice every day. Practice every day to let go of the big leaps.
With gratitude,
Joe
Hi, I’m Joe, the owner of 5 With Joe Performance Coaching. My clients are leaders, organizations, and teams who utilize my Olympic Gold Medal performance strategies and 40 years of navigating whitewater river rapids to streamline decision making and actions when engaged in complicated river currents of business and life.
The best way to interact with me is though Sunday Morning Joe, my weekly newsletter that explores the art of improving performance, overcoming challenge, and aligning with purpose for Sunday readers in search of more depth and motivation. Subscribe HERE for free.
