Before every company had a streaming service, there was the DVR. Before that, it was the DVD. And before that, the VCR! With its clunky cassettes and a clock that almost no one knew how or cared enough to set to the correct time. Therefore it always showed 12:00. By modern standards, the VCR is a dinosaur. Its limitations make it laughably simplistic but it was a necessary step in the evolution of entertainment. It was quite possibly the last one that required real time interaction with its human operator. Regardless, I’m going to use it as a quick representation on moving toward one’s dreams.
V – The first letter stands for VISION! It is necessary to have some sort of picture inside of your mind’s eye about where you want to go or what you want to do. If you don’t have the target inside of your head, you won’t hit it. This is obvious and simple but often people have too general of a target and therefore anything looks like progress. Be specific about what it is that you want or else you’ll only get something that looks a little like it.
C – The second letter stands for CHUNK! Specifically I’m talking about breaking that vision into chunks that will be achievable. A vision can be huge and overwhelming. When broken into chunks, it feels much more manageable and achievable. I love the old phrase, “there’s only one way to eat an elephant, one bite at a time.” Of course I’m not a proponent of eating elephants but the statements holds the greatest truth. Anything can be broken into enough pieces that it is achievable. So whatever your vision is, break it into small enough pieces for you to digest.
R – Even though it is last, it’s probably the most important, REASONS! Having a vision and breaking it into pieces are both easy. I just had a vision of me running a marathon. My chunks would be slowly increasing distances over the coming months in order to prepare with long runs on the weekends and shorter more intense runs during the week. It’s meaningless!!! I’ve run a marathon before. It was a great experience but at the moment, I don’t have any reason to run one. Of course I could create all kinds of reasons. The reasons are where the power is and that is all up to you! People quit smoking because their kid coughed in the back seat of the car, not because of the pain of lung cancer. Humans have an amazing ability to create reasons to do anything and everything.
So now it is on you! What is your vision? What are the individual steps that will get you there? And why do you want to make it happen? It’s not overly complicated but if you follow through on doing each step well, you’ll get where you want to go. No doubt about it. Just make sure the reasons are enough. You want to find “rocket fuel” reasons rather than charcoal. Charcoal may get you to some places but if you’ve got a big vision, it may take a long time.
Dream big!
Pete
It’s actually quite amazing when you think about it. The fact that pessimism can even exist in a world where we have achieved so much. The internet, space travel, self-driving cars and a myriad of other examples should really give us hope that anything is possible. In a short span of time, we’ve gone from living a relatively meager existence to bending the world to a place of our own design. I recognize fully that not all of the progress come without cost. However even the problems that we have created are well within our scope to solve. The problem is one of vision.
Head Coach, Evan Weller, has been building the soccer program at Phillipsburg High School for the past 16 years. This conversation highlights some of the components to their success and thoughts beyond the lines of the field.
Huryk Unlimited 