Motion
Sometimes things don’t go as planned. There are often times in our personal or professional lives in which we are sailing along at a good clip, then out of the blue a wave hits us that we didn’t see coming. Or, we may have thought circumstances were about to change, but then they do sooner than we had expected. Suddenly, we are forced to make huge course corrections so that our ship doesn’t sink and all that we hold dear doesn’t go under. Is that a good enough metaphor for this? How about this one? I just received a poster quoting my favorite of all time movie, Rocky, that said, “It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard can get hit and keep moving forward.“ I would add that we only need to get up one more time than we’re knocked down.
Sometimes life punches us in the gut. All leaders face this. It stinks, but it is the new reality. My solution is that after I catch my breath and regain my composure, I stay in motion. It would be easy and tempting to crawl into a hole and hope circumstances will change on their own, but that’s not the way it works for me. I must get moving and be active in wrestling circumstances into submission. I have lost count how many times things didn’t go as I had hoped, but I do know that with each setback, I have regrouped and charged forward again. Just being in motion makes me feel better and ready to tackle the next challenge.
So, leader, have you had something not go as you had planned? Has the boxer on the other side of the ring knocked you off your feet? Get up. Just get up one more time. Pick whatever metaphor you want (I’ve got a million of them) and be in motion. The future awaits.
Lead well.