Are you Unstoppable?
This article was originally posted on the LTI blog
Last week my daughter came home on the verge of tears after her rowing competition. She really wanted to win, but she didn’t get to be on that podium.
She felt she failed herself, but especially her coach, who had such high hopes for her.
I asked her to tell me more about the competition, and she said she had to leave the docks on her own and find the mark for the race’s starting point a kilometer away from where she was.
She was so eager to get to that starting point that she missed the mark, continued an extra kilometer, and had to retrace her steps back while the referee repeatedly shouted her name over the loudspeakers.
“By the time I got back to the starting line, I was so exhausted from trying to get there on time…” she said with tears in her eyes…
“I don’t know what happened, I really don’t… I trained hard, I was ready, I was so pumped up, I visualized me winning, I heard Sia’s song ‘Unstoppable’…”
“But that was the problem, wasn’t it” I interrupted.
“The problem?” she asked
“Yes,” I said, smiling…
She was puzzled for a minute.
“Oh,” she said, switching from tears to laughter, “you are right, that WAS the problem. I was so ‘unstoppable’ that I missed the starting-point mark…”
Many leaders I work with today constantly “miss the mark” in an effort to become unstoppable.
While our current work culture pushes us to become more productive, more effective, more efficient, it really only makes us exceptionally good at doing more things that we shouldn’t have done in the first place.
Trying to be unstoppable makes us forget that the source of innovation, the source of focused work, the source of sustainable living, is not about constantly pushing forward.
It is about recognizing that we always have the option to choose when to push forward and when it is time to take our leg off the accelerator and simply take in the beautiful views or stop by the sideways and stroll for a while.
It seems that a significant part of my work today is helping people re-learn to first breathe and slow down before supporting them in <a href=”http://leadthriveinspire.com/the-5-life-principles-to-get-you-back-to-high-performance-in-both-your-personal-and-professional-life/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener nofollow”>riding their own inner wave</a> and becoming more focused, more intentional, and more aware in their work and lives.
It appears that today to become truly unstoppable, we first need to learn how to stop…
Music: “<a href=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaEG2aWJnZ8″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener nofollow”>Unstoppable</a>”, By Sia
