Photo courtesy SXC.hu
Guest Post by Chris Wilcox
So at the present moment, I’m sitting at my dinner table trying to re-insert myself in the creative realm and come up with a design for a website. Sometimes I look at other artists work to get inspired (yeah, big surprise right!?) Well, over the last several months, I’ve had this recurring train of thought, and the other day while I was doing my swim workout, I decided I’d write about it and see if it resonated with any of you. Oh, and by the way, thanks to Dee Wilcox (my beautiful wife and talented creative) for letting me be a guest writer on her blog.
Ok, so here it is. Usually every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I get up at 6:15am to drag myself to the gym to play racquetball with two friends of mine. We’ve been doing this for almost a year now, and even though getting up is usually the hardest part, I’m always glad I’m up and running early. Well, I’ll be honest, I’m not that bad at racquetball, and since I had been playing for several years before my friends joined me so naturally, I thought I’d be able to beat my friends pretty effortlessly. For several months, that turned out to be the case.
However, as the months progressed, I noticed that they started getting much better and that I had to start actually playing to win. Well, even though they were progressing, I started to notice that if I just exerted myself about 50%, I still could usually win. Well, this is where I started catching myself starting to do something. Almost every time, without fail, I’d find myself in the lead, maybe up by 6-7 points and poised to win. Then, it was always at this point that I’d start to slack, and within a few minutes, without fail, I’d find myself not only no longer in the lead, but behind by several points, and then, usually, I’d be congratulating my friends on beating me.
Now, it didn’t really bother me much in the beginning, but after several weeks of continually losing, I started to wonder why I naturally seemed to start backing off right when I needed to dig in. I started thinking that being in the lead is the easy part, which, strangely enough, can also be the hardest part.
So let’s leave this point behind and move on. So needless to say, this intrigued me and I started to wonder if I do this in any other area of my life. So fast forward several months down the road, and I started to notice a pattern in my life. I would find myself really start making progress in certain areas and really enjoying this new found sense of discipline, only to start to lose steam in the middle and towards the end of whatever I was doing.
I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who had decided to really push himself to accomplish what he calls his “K2.” We were talking about how most major accomplishments are won and lost in the end. Recently, I decided that I wanted to start swimming as part of my cardio workout, and let me just tell you, that is no small chore. It always interests me that once I achieve a certain level of success, I meet someone or learn something that shows me I have so much farther to go. I think that is healthy personally, but none the less, I started swimming.
In the beginning, I asked what a good workout would be for a beginner and found out that 15 laps was a good start, so I got in the pool very excited to start my new workout routine only to be disappointed that I could only muster the strength to get 6 laps. Well, over the last few months, I’ve been able to get between an average of 15-20 laps in a workout, but recently, after I was on my way home from a somewhat difficult day, I decided that I wanted to push myself as hard as I ever have and really go for 1 mile in the pool (which is 35 laps-70 total). Needless to say, that was extremely intimidating as I was lucky to break beyond 20, but I was determined. I noticed that I could get to about 27 or 28, and then I was hurting. I was starting to cramp, my strength was fading, and I had swallowed so much water I was starting to feel sick, but I didn’t want to quit. Pushed through to 30 and then I was fighting. I still had 5 more to go. Just enough to be too much, but close enough that I couldn’t quit and it hit me.
This is where I usually lose. Starting was the easy part. Anybody can’t start something, but the real point is are you willing to fight for it, not in the middle where we all start to feel it, but just beyond the middle when you’re done, exhausted, have nothing left, have no more creativity and are completely frustrated. I can sit here and tell you story after story where this comes into play in my life and as I started noticing this pattern, I became educated about how I approach situations.
I want to be a finisher. We need to pay attention to the patterns in our life and ask ourselves what are we 10% away from finishing. Are you within 1 year of school and too exhausted to go on? Have you been pursing a dream of doing something only to not see any progress after several years? Are you too afraid just to take the first step?
If you’ll begin to notice the patterns in your life, you’ll be better able to start attaining your goals because you’ll know the point that you need to dig in. You could be just days away from your breakthough. You could be a week away from those few pounds you’re trying to lose. You could be a year away from the creative opportunity you’ve been working so hard for. Remember, the battle is won and lost in the last leg. Push through when you’re exhausted because chances are, you not that far from reaching your destination.
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Word. I quit when I get bored. Which means I quit long before a great success. Good post Chris. Thanks for helping me re-focus.
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Good post. Very thought-provoking. Thanks!
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I can relate to this – in fact I think I am in this cycle right now. Thanks for a great post!
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