Conquering the Hill Ahead
By Craig Ross
Sometimes the wisdom of a child pierces the adult reality, and quickly brings clarity to a seemingly chaotic world. The other day my seven-year-old daughter and I went for a bike ride. On our return trip, we faced "the hill," a hill of such gigantic proportions that even the adult peddler is taxed. I had thought about the hill when choosing this route, but on previous rides had heard nothing about it from my daughter. That changed on this ride.
"See that hill up there, Daddy?" she said, peddling in rhythm.
"Yes honey," I responded.
"It looks really big from here," her legs beginning to churn faster. "But once you get up to it, it's not that bad."
I nearly fell over. Unknowingly, and with innocent brilliance, a child revealed what most adults know - but have spend a life-time learning.
Celebrating Progress
With the new-year, there is great optimism. There's a freshness. But there's also goals. Stretch Goals. Bold Goals. Big Goals. Hairy Goals. Targets. Benchmarks. End Zones. And Objectives. As the pace becomes quicker, and our desks become a hill of their own, the year ahead can look mighty steep.
Yet, we all know what my daughter uttered on that bike ride is true. "It looks really big from here. But once you get up to it, it's not that bad."
Why won't it be that bad? What insures that we'll make progress? It's the lesson most of us get to relearn from time to time. Great leaders, those who consistently deliver and live joyously, have mastered it.
Children naturally live in Degrees of Strength. They measure what they are doing well. They measure how far they've come. They measure the fun they're having. They measure what they've accomplished.
Adults? When I'm not at my best, I only measure what I haven't done. How far I have to go. The number of emails in my in-box. The days I have to spend away from my family. And how long it will take to get to the top.
And yet, while the child uses a measurement we call call Degrees of Strength, they still don't forget about their objective. My daughter's eyes were glued to the top of that hill. She leaned forward, her legs pumping like pistons, her face grimacing as if she were pulling a truck.
And do you know what happened?
She didn't make it. About a third of the way up, she exhaled loudly and quit. I stopped beside her, contemplating the opportunity to parent a 'quitting lesson'...when she taught me another.
With her feet on the ground, she turned quickly and proudly exclaimed, "Look how far I made it this time, Daddy!"
I could only smile and agree. She had made it much further than last time. We commenced a celebration that would make any child proud. Then we set our sights higher. "The blue car up there." Then, "That big tree, Daddy!" Then, "That truck." And then, "Yippeee!" We arrived! It was certainly not a parent's victory, but 100%, pure, authentic child.
There's one more lesson gleamed - Perhaps the biggest of all. No doubt, there are parents and leaders who already caught it: the bike ride up that hill was a heck of a lot of fun.
By measuring our progress, by measuring how far we had come, and by celebrating along the way, we turned that hill upside down. We might as well have been going down that hill!
What hill lies ahead for you? How will measuring your progress, celebrating that progress, than focusing on a clear plan of execution, serve you?
Is it possible that it could be the difference between failure or success in your bid to reaching the top of the hill in '05?
Is it possible that this Degrees of Strength approach could be the key to enjoying 2005?
Here's to the hill ahead. "Once you get up to it, it's not that bad."
(c) 2005 Pathways to Leadership, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
