Steady – Dave Glardon

Good morning, and happy Friday! I hope your day is off to a nice start.

In two weeks, this year will finally be over. Now I know how it must feel for a prisoner to enter his final stretch behind bars. Except, for most of us, 2021 will pick up pretty much where 2020 leaves off. It’s like leaving work on Thursday after a really tough week. You know something good is on the horizon, but the last thing the boss says is, “See you tomorrow!” Damn.

Okay, I guess waking up on January 1 and realizing you still have a job is probably nothing to complain about. It sure beats the alternative. But let’s be honest. This year has been like living in a Stephen King novel and when you finally reach the end, you find out he’s written a sequel.

Yes, January will look a lot like December, except every check we write will be dated with the wrong year. Normally the gym would be loaded with overweight people in brand-new workout attire, but I have a feeling even that will be missing this year. At least we have an excuse. I mean, can you imagine wearing a mask on a treadmill?

Yes, I know – people in the gym don’t have to wear a mask. All the more reason to stay away. Just following doctor’s orders. And yes, I know, I could walk around the block a dozen times instead. But there’s white stuff on the ground, and it doesn’t appear to be melting nearly as fast as I’d hoped. And what’s under that white stuff gets harder with every passing year. Boom!

Still, January is a time of rejuvenation. It’s a new year, we have new goals, and a fresh outlook on the promise of a much better year. We set goals and refer to them as resolutions, but they’re mostly just pipe dreams. Oh, we mean well … we just don’t give enough thought up front to what it’ll take to achieve them. It’s like biting into a jawbreaker. The really sour kind.

Our goals for the new year usually fall into a few predictable categories – improved health, a more pleasant persona, and getting out of debt. With few exceptions, our hopes for the new year usually fall somewhere into one of those realms. You’d think after a few years we’d have the follow-through perfected. But most of us never get beyond the starting gate.

Part of the problem is that, in our quest for instant results, we set unattainable goals and then try to buck the system to accomplish them. My doctor keeps telling me to set a goal of losing 1-2 pounds per week. Seriously??? At that rate it’ll take the better part of two years! I’m lucky to dream up this year’s resolutions, but making plans a year in advance? Give me a break!

So, we set about looking for shortcuts to achieve our goals faster and, in the process, we just sit here spinning our wheels until early February when we run out of gas and go back to what we’d been doing. “I’ll pay off these bills in no time! I’ll walk to work, shut off the cable, pack a sandwich every day, and quadruple the payment on my credit cards! It’ll work!”

We can even do the math to prove it. Just like that 30-pound weight loss every month. A pound a day … that’s not so much! And, really, it isn’t. For a day or two. But beyond a few days, it’s neither healthy nor sustainable. The same is true of most things we’d like to accomplish. Fast & furious is a great way to crash and burn. Sometimes we have to slow down to speed up.

Put a plan in place, one that builds on a solid foundation and achieves measurable but moderate goals every week. No matter how much money you make, you could easily double that in the coming year. That part is easy. It’s the willingness to start small and build that gets in the way. We want results, and we want them NOW!

Friends, 2021 could be the year you break out and set yourself on a path of achieving your most treasured dreams. But the rules have changed, and you have to play within those rules to win. You can’t do it the way you would have last year, or even at the start of this year. You have to be open to new ideas and new ways of doing things.

As I said yesterday, our world has changed and we’re not going back. You have to adapt to the present if you want to succeed in the future. Our dreams may be the same, but the means of achieving them are different. Open your mind, set attainable goals, and work with 2021 instead of against it. How do you achieve huge success? One small win at a time.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

Follow @dglardon

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a great start.

I woke up feeling reasonably rested for a change. My Fitbit’s sleep tracker doesn’t think I slept all that well, but what does it know? All it does is look for movement and track my heart rate. The only time I’m not moving at night is when I’m wide awake and trying to get back to sleep. And my heart runs really slow all the time. All I care about is how tired I am in the morning.

Several years ago, I was in the hospital overnight with “unspecified chest pain.” Let me tell you, if you want to skip the lines at the emergency room, walk in pointing to your chest. You’ll go straight back to a room. It’ll still be an hour before you see a doctor, but at least you’re not out in that germ incubator they call a reception area.

Well, I skipped the lines that night, and I also got a warm bed to sleep in. That’s the other thing about chest pain – you’re not going home. All through the night, this alarm kept going off next to my head. The nurse said it was a low-pulse alarm that goes off any time my heart rate drops below 50. Which, incidentally, happens EVERY SINGLE TIME I fall asleep..

My doctor says it’s not a problem, but apparently it was enough to keep me awake all night. I don’t know what causes it to run so slow. They say it happens with athletes and people who exercise a lot. Yeah, that’s not me. I think my heart is just pacing itself. You know, like a runner who’s in it for the long haul. And I’m really in no hurry to reach the finish line anyway.

Of course, we can take that to an extreme sometimes. It’s one thing to start everything like a jackrabbit and peter out halfway through the first lap, but it’s easy to start off so slowly we never really get in stride. Sure, everyone else is taking a breather because they sped off too quickly, but they’re still way ahead of us. At some point, we need to pick up the pace.

As we’ve discussed in a lot of topics, it’s not hard to pick up the pace at work. You’ve got somebody standing behind you (literally or figuratively) expecting you to do the job in half the time anyone else could, and they control the paychecks. We know the consequences of moving too slowly. Nobody needs to spell it out. But what about when it’s something for you?

In my business, some things take a little practice. You practice until you’ve got the steps committed to memory, and then run with it. Or at least that’s the way it’s supposed to work. But sometimes we get so caught up in dress rehearsals that we never actually take the stage. We’re still just “getting good at it.”

Ever heard of analysis paralysis? It’s what happens when we sit back and analyze something to the point we never actually step out and start doing something productive. Oh, we know exactly how we’ll handle any situation that arises. That’s committed to memory. The problem is, situations never arise because we’re still sitting there thinking about it.

Then, when we finally do get started, we feel that overwhelming urge to take it slow. Why? Because, according to our analysis, it’s only a matter of time until something goes wrong. We have to go slowly so we don’t blow right past it. Mistakes must be corrected. They taught us that in kindergarten. Slow and easy wins the race. Remember that one?

Well, slow and easy keeps you pretty much in pace with everybody else around you. You take a step, they take a step. Everybody takes a step. We’re all moving, but nobody is getting ahead. And even if it’s not a competition to see who can get there first, you already know what happens when you stick with the crowd. By the time everybody gets there, all the good stuff is gone.

The only way to step ahead of the crowd (and that much closer to your dreams) is to pick up the pace. Sure, do some analysis. Practice. But put a date on the calendar and commit to it – “No matter what, I will get started on this day. I don’t have to be perfect, and I don’t need to plan out every contingency. I’ll do what I need to do and handle challenges as they arise.”

And once you get started, get moving. Set a pace – a steady rhythm of doing the things you need to do every day to bring you closer to your goal. You may not beat everybody else to the finish, but you’ll get there just the same. And odds are you’ll pass a lot of dropouts along the way.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

Follow @dglardon

Tag: Steady

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