I recently went on a walk with my 2yr old daughter that took longer than expected.
Well, it started as me walking, and her on her bike, and ended up us both walking and me carrying the bike. She was constantly distracted by rocks, and veering into the middle of the road.
After me directing her out of the middle of the road multiple times, she finally gave up on biking and wanted to walk instead.
It was one of the first fall days of the year.
You know, the kind you’ve been waiting all summer for. When you can finally be outside and not sweat.
On that Sunday afternoon I had nothing to do, besides be there with my kid as we spent time together outside. Yet, I found myself getting increasingly irritated by the fact that we couldn’t just walk from point A to B at a consistent pace.
She’d stop.
She’d turn around and walk the other way.
She’d pick up rocks.
She’d just kind of wander in place.
Meanwhile, I just wanted us to walk, forward…
Then when she sat down on the curb, and patted the empty space beside her with her little hand and said “Daddy, Sit”… and that’s when it hit me.
I realized, it wasn’t about the walk. It wasn’t about us going somewhere or coming back. It was about what was happening while we were on the walk.
She didn’t have anywhere to be, and neither did I.. yet I was concerned with going back to the house, and she wasn’t.
So we sat.
We sat on that curb for 15 minutes. We sat there and waited until we saw mom drive by on her way back from the store.
She then climbed in moms car for the final stretch of the neighborhood that led to our house.
I carried her bike home.
And thought about our walk…
And from this story, I’ve concluded there are 2 lessons to be learned here that directly relate to my professional career (coaching fitness).
Specifically the idea of setting goals and achieving them.
Often times people have good intentions when setting fitness goals. It’s usually something like “Lose X lbs, Increase my energy, or get healthier.”
Though somewhere along the way, they let themselves get distracted and end up just wandering around in the middle of the road (metaphorically speaking). Gym attendance slows. Work and other obligations creep up. A week off turns into a month. The membership bill keeps coming out of your bank account. You decide it’s not worth it.
If you have a specific goal, (end result)
You need a plan (the roadmap)
And you have to follow it (keep moving forward)
If you want to succeed.
If the amount of focus on your goal is equal to my daughter on a walk, you may never get there. Achieving specific goals takes dedicated concentration on the plan.
However, the other lesson that can be learned here, is that you may be on the right path, but you wind up running into some road blocks (distractions) along the way.
An unexpected car repair bill.
A vacation followed by a week being sick.
The Holidays.
These things are inevitably going to happen to everyone in some form. Though as long as you don’t completely give up, you’ll still eventually get there.
Although our walk got hijacked by a fun 30 second car ride with mommy, we were going to finish it regardless.
We had a plan: Walk to the stop sign and back.
We had many distractions and even a 15 minute break.
But we were determined to see it through and not give up.
So if you have a goal, and it’s not happening as soon as you’d like you must ask yourself – am I still doing something? Am I still trying? Am I wandering in the middle of the road, but I still know which way to go?
Keep going.
-Korey & Charley.