I try to love Winter. Really I do. I don't mind the snow (as long as I don't have to drive in it). I think the snow is pretty - especially when it covers the tree branches. My neighbor asked me a very important question this morning as we were waiting at the end of my driveway, aka the bus stop, "Why do we live here?" I don't know, man, I don't know.
My kids love Winter for the sledding. Zoey loves the snow because it's another source of cold liquid refreshment.
Sunday morning Isaac, Zoey and I went for a Winter hike on my favorite trail. Was it cold? Yes. Did I really feel like going outside with the wind chill? Nope. But we did it. All for this photo.
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| My favorite dog, my favorite boy and my favorite bridge |
Kids will happily go out in this weather to go sledding. Even though it's cold. And they have to walk up the hill after every trip down. They place a lot of value on the exhilaration of that few-second ride down a hill. It's worth it to them.
Unlike the gratification that kids get when sledding, we probably don't see such immediate results with our goals. But we need to place more value on getting there and the results we want! I want to encourage you today. Believe in yourself. Don't give up. Give yourself permission to do this for you. Fight the excuses. There will always be something else you could be doing. And you'll probably never FEEL like doing it.
The company I work for recently had a Women in Leadership event and Mel Robbins was the keynote speaker. She has a 5 second rule. We aren't talking about the "if you drop food on the floor and pick it up within 5 seconds, you can eat it" rule. Ew. Gross. Just no. This is the "DO something before your brain talks you out of it" rule.
Here she is on YouTube.
Now she's not saying, "hey, if you have the idea that you should work out today, you should drop everything in 5 seconds and make it happen." That's not it at all. She is saying take a step in that direction. And that's key because the first step can be the hardest.
I am reminded of when I was in high school and was part of the Boy Scout Explorer Program to explore a career in firefighting. We took a trip to Devil's Head State Park and went repelling. Repelling is like the opposite of rock climbing - you are going down. We learned how to tie our own knots and then used that rope to repel over the edge. I don't think the fall from the top of the rocks would've killed us, but we would've broken a lot of things. I was super excited for this trip. We planned out the details and made sure that we thought of everything. My nerves didn't set in until we hiked to the top of the cliff. I watched the others go over. I let a few more people go ahead of me. It was finally my turn. All of a sudden that was the last place I wanted to be. I wanted to crawl under rock. If I had been the only one there, I would've gone back. I'm sure I thought of a million other things I could've been doing instead. But my troop encouraged me. I saw that others survived just fine. I had a friend help me in the harness and double check my knots. I was all set. But the rest was up to me. All I had to do was walk to the edge, lean back and take that first step. I walked to the edge and peered over. The others that had already done it waved to me from the bottom. Well that's a good sign. They all survived. It took me a long time to lean back over the edge (oh, geez, that makes me think of those trust exercises where you close your eyes and lean back and someone is supposed to catch you??). Millimeter by millimeter, I moved my hands further down the rope until I was finally (barely) leaning over the edge. You are balancing all your weight over the edge of the cliff and everything in your brain is telling you that you can't take that step because you are going to fall over the edge, but of course you won't because you have a harness and ropes in place. But it took me FOREVER to take that first step. My heart felt like it was beating outside of my chest. My hands were trembling around the ropes. My feet felt paralyzed. Everyone there was encouraging me, telling me to just do it. And finally I did it - when everyone rallied "on the count of three!" That's all I needed. Three seconds to get myself ready and set to do it. Any more than that and I know I would've talked myself out of it. Who knew there was something magical about the count of three? Mel Robbins. She apparently knew.
After that first frightening step, I loved it. And afterwards, I felt silly for taking so long to get over the edge.
So what's holding you back? What are you afraid of? Let's do this - on the count of three!
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