UPTalk 1- “Freeze what you can freeze”
Every Tuesday and Thursday my daughter and I drive 50 minutes to her weekly hockey practices. Because we spend so much time in the car, it is a little bit common for her to bring schoolwork. The other day, she was studying for a test she had coming up gym class. As we rolled down the highway, we spent the next several minutes discussing her upcoming test.
One of the topics she was studying was goal setting. You know…SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Action Oriented, Realistic and Timely…. maybe a topic for another blog). This got me thinking about goals and about the place they hold in our lives. There are big goals like becoming a millionaire, small goals like making it to the weekend without eating chocolate and all sizes of goals in between.
Most often, the ambitions we have are significant enough that they can’t be rolled up into an afternoon, a day or even a week. Our goals don’t often have nice tidy beginnings, middles and ends. This is because our ambitions are usually based in personal meaning. We want to do things that change who we are, things that improve the lives of our families and/or things that help us to become a little more complete as humans.
We are entirely capable of these ambitions, whatever they may be. The trouble is that all too often, somewhere between our starting point and that finish line we so heartily desire, we seem to lose our way. More exactly, there is too much empty space between the moment we enthusiastically start our pursuit and the point off in the future where we would theoretically realize our goal.
Every year we build a rink in our backyard. When I was young my dad would always make a rink for us and it was one of my favourite places on earth. Now, I build a rink with our family each year and it’s one of my new favourite places.
People around town know that we have a rink and because of this, sometimes I get asked about how we do it. My advice is always the same – “In the beginning, freeze what you can freeze.” You see, when you set out to make a rink if your focus from the beginning is only on the end product, you’ll surely quit before you get anything even remotely skateable. You want the rink to be smooth and flat, but at the start, the snow is soft, there are footprints everywhere, and there’s no chance flat is what you have. So, you set out to freeze something, anything really.
In the early days it’s ugly. Some snow, some tarp, frozen dirt, you name it. Somewhere in there you can usually make out the Canadian maple leaf logo from the footprint of your Roots boots, now frozen in the mess where you plan to skate one day. But this is not what you will skate on, this is simply the foundation for the smooth, awesome rink you are building. As you continue to flood, the water does its work, it finds its level and you get closer to your very own ice palace. And when it’s 11PM and you’re on the couch and no part of you wants to go out in the cold, you dig in to find the energy for one more flood. Not because that one flood finishes the job but because that one flood is necessary for what you want and because once that window to flood passes, you never get it back.
Pursuing goals is exactly the same. You will set yourself up for failure (and you will be totally unfair to yourself) if the only pieces you have are the starting line and somewhere off in the distance a finish line you are hoping for. Allow yourself the benefit of approaching things one flood at a time. As you do, you might even find that you really enjoy the routine of standing in your backyard with a garden hose on a calm winter’s night.
Let’s face it, none of us are chasing a tiny moment where we get to taste awesome, we’re chasing the state of being awesome in a real and sustainable way. Accomplishing the things you want in real and genuine ways comes from the daily contributions. One day your backyard rink will be the best place, but for today the only thing that gets you closer to skating is to do today’s work.
No matter how big or small the end play is, there is always an available victory that you can focus on as part of the whole. Let that be your focus. Real accomplishment doesn’t happen in the form of one grand gesture, they come from showing up and grinding it out in small ways, even when, especially when, it appears like that small way will never be enough. The 11PM flood, out in the cold by yourself, is the money flood. Always.
It takes courage to show up and to make it through today’s work. In the moment it will feel ordinary, but it’s not. It’s not ordinary because taking today off will always be the easier choice. Having the guts to show up today is extraordinary, because it’s the only real path to what you aspire to.
Whatever your best is for today, give yourself that best. And after the last flood of the night when you are back inside, comfortably back on your couch, smile at what you have accomplished today. Freeze what you can freeze.
Written by: Pierre Arsenault (Bio)