Running Through the Finishing Line!

In early May I was preparing for my 1-day workshop. I have held 1-3 day events before, but they all had taken place in my or someone else’s home. So, renting a room in a hotel and organizing everything around that was different and a bit more intense.

I remember waking up the morning before the event with the thought that the event was important, of course, but it was not the final destination. Even though most of my energy was directed towards making everything happen in the best way possible, I also had to keep some of my focus on my long-term plans and vision. Creating this workshop would be a step towards what?

Life is going on – there is no pause.

When you watch running competitions, you can see that, especially with short track, the distance in the runner’s mind is not 100m or 200m, but something more like 110m and 220m. They have to focus on a spot behind the finishing line in order to maintain the fastest speed for the whole distance. If they focus on the actual distance, the actual finishing line, they will start to slow down too early and can be easily overtaken at the last second.

In our lives so often all our focus and energy goes to a particular event or deadline. This may be at work where deadlines on projects and reports create a forward momentum. It may also take place in our personal life. I have noticed that when people get married, everybody talks about the event, not what is happening the day, weeks or months after.

When you live from that perspective, you will likely encounter a lot of go – stop, go – stop energy in your life. It may be exciting to be in the “go” part, however, you may experience the “stop” part as a “downer”. Having no momentum often invites you to start picking things apart and opens the door to unproductive judging. Once you are in that space, it becomes challenging to bring your energy up for the next round.

If you look at your events in a bigger context and see them all as steps that you walk up in your personal staircase of life, it is much easier to feel more balanced. You are not over-valuing each event. You have clarity how the completion of each event leads to the next and how they add up in creating what you want to achieve, how you want to be and show up in your personal and your work life.

From that perspective, you are in charge, not the event. No matter if you judge it to be: “awesome” or “not so great”, it is not defining your whole life. You can celebrate it, learn from it, repeat it, drop it – your choice. You just have to remember that after each event, challenge and encounter, there is always the next step and the sooner you can take it, the smoother life is going to be.

So, consider for a moment, how your events fit into the bigger picture of your life.

What needs to happen for you to run through the finishing line? —

Looking forward to seeing you there!