Everyone wants the doors of opportunity to open. But how many people are actually prepared for what it will take to walk through them once they do?
The most exciting opportunities put you on the hook to elevate your game. The work is only just beginning when a new door opens and an opportunity presents itself.
Be steady like a boat. Even though it doesn’t know its destination or how long it will have to endure each passing storm – it doesn’t waver. For the boat, the only choice is onward – with faith in the horizon that awaits.
What starts as a passion driven and process oriented pursuit with others in mind can quickly become an ego driven and outcome oriented pursuit with only yourself in mind if you’re not paying attention.
To be aware is to catch yourself when your hand has gotten lazy on the rudder and you start drifting off course. It’s only human to get distracted, but how soon and how accurately can you course correct? Your ability to stay true to your values and steer your ship accordingly will determine your sense of fulfillment and your potential for impact.
Joy is possible in life but it’s never going to find you or be magically dumped in your lap. I’ve learned that there’s a certain amount of seeking and cultivating that goes into living a joyful life.
Understanding this can either add to your resistance and resentment, or it can add to your joy. We’re often more deeply rewarded by that which comes by taking agency than by that which comes by no effort. This doesn’t mean forcing joy or positivity when you’re struggling or enduring something really challenging. It means living in a state of seeking. Is there joy to be found in unlikely places or mundane moments if you look and listen closely?
To knock is to invite a door to be opened. To seek joy is to create joy.
At the start of the year, I pivoted from owning a gym and coaching strength and endurance in person to moving my business, Wild Dog Athletics, entirely online and only providing coaching and programming remotely. Even though I was 100% confident in my decision, I found myself feeling a little fear and uncertainty around losing what I had always considered to be one of my coaching “superpowers” – my ability to connect and relate to others.
Putting effort into cultivating a personal relationship with each athlete I work with has long been foundational to my coaching philosophy. While this wouldn’t change as I moved online, I was concerned about the organic opportunities for connection and bonding that would be lost when I was no longer seeing an athlete in person on a weekly basis.
As I moved forward, I realized that not only was this fear unfounded as I came up with new ways to stay connected from afar – but that I could also replace my fear with curiosity. How would my “superpower(s)” evolve in the next iteration of Wild Dog Athletics? What new potential would I discover? How would I be able to serve others in completely new ways?
I didn’t have to deny that things were changing to escape my fear – I had to embrace that things were changing because it’s precisely through change and uncertainty that new possibilities make themselves known. That’s not something to be afraid of, that’s something to celebrate.
When things change, you can either take the perspective of everything you stand to lose or take the perspective of everything you have to gain. Which perspective will you choose as we enter the second quarter of the year?
Muscles will stiffen in response to unstable joints, as a way of preventing us from moving into potentially harmful ranges of motion.This pattern repeats itself when we emotionally stiffen in response to life’s inherent instability.
We fear change, so we resist it through our thoughts and our actions. It feels like we’re protecting ourselves and maintaining control by doing so, but just like the discomfort that comes from muscles stiffening around an unstable joint, all we end up doing is creating more pain for ourselves.
What big or small changes are you stiffening against, and creating more pain for yourself by doing so? What would it look like to think and act in a way that accepts those changes instead?
Life is dynamic and ever-changing. We can choose to resist it and stiffen against it, or we can choose to accept it and move with it – opening ourselves up to new experiences and unimagined possibilities as a result.
Friction creates traction and traction is necessary for propelling forward. Have you ever tried to run or walk on snow and ice? Without enough friction between the sole of your shoe and the ground, it’s almost impossible to push off without your foot slipping backward and away from you. The power of your gait becomes limited, and moving forward happens slowly and gingerly.
We often resist and resent the challenges that show up in our lives without realizing that the friction they create can provide the necessary traction for propelling us forward.
What challenges have you endured in the past that in hindsight you can acknowledge led to a larger lesson or greater growth? Reflect on this now and as you face new challenges in the future. Doing so can be a reminder of your ability to endure, and of the possible meaning to be discovered if you keep moving forward.
The beauty of life is that you can start over as many times as you want. There is no limit to how many chances you can give yourself to change.
What second, third, fourth, or tenth chance to change will give yourself this week?
Play must be a part of movement for it to be sustainable and for it to actually change who you are. For all the talk of goals – where is the talk of play? I don’t mean it’s always “fun” – although it certainly can be and maybe is often. By “play,” I mean playing the way a child plays – doing the thing for no other reason than the doing itself.
At what point did you lose your recognition of the joy in the doing? At what point did you start judging the value of a pursuit solely based on its outcome? I’ve said it a thousand times and I’ll keep saying it: outcomes are fleeting, uncontrollable, and unpredictable – making it impossible for them to be lasting sources of fulfillment.
But the doing is not fleeting and is within our control. The doing is forever and never has to end. The doing is a bottomless well of fulfillment – you can draw as much joy, excitement, and inspiration from it as your intent allows.
To move and train and compete like kids playing on a playground means that as good as achievement feels, it doesn’t really matter. You show up and play regardless. Because getting to put your heart into something is the cake and anything that follows is a cherry on top.
I spent one summer during college working for a youth soccer company. My job as a coach was to show up at schools and parks and make soccer fun, exciting, and educational for young kids. But from the beginning, my bosses instilled in me that while the needs of the kids always took priority, what I had to offer was much wider reaching.
They taught me that from the second I arrived at a school or park to the second I left, I had the potential to positively impact anyone and everyone, not just the kids. Within the context of my role this included school administrators, teachers, security guards, park staff, receptionists, parents, and curious bystanders. Did my job technically require me to hold the door open for a teacher, or to thank a security guard, or to take interest in the lives of the parents? No. But I could never know what kind of a day someone was having, and little gestures of kindness could go a long way in making a positive impact.
We’re all taught from a young age to be respectful and polite. But it was empowering to learn that in engaging with the person in front of me, offering kindness, or showing interest in their life – I could potentially be playing a more meaningful role in their day than I would ever come to know. It’s a lesson that’s made my life more exciting, driven me to be more present, and is why you can almost always catch me striking up a conversation with the barista at Starbucks or with the check-out clerk at Trader Joe’s.
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