Christina Brandt

My new hiking boots

Today, I passed Margaritaville. Not Jimmy Buffett’s chain of stores, but a house on Stony Brook Lane called Margaritaville.  (I want to meet those people!  But I digress…)  It’s at the bottom of a VERY steep hill I just added to my morning walk.  You see, I’m leading a retreat in Spain next month, and we’re going to be walking 67 1/2 miles in six days. I need to be able to walk about 11 miles a day, and I’m not even close. But I have hope, so I’m adding a hill or upping the distance of my daily walks every few days. If someone had told me a month ago that I’d be at the bottom of Stony Brook Lane, I’d have laughed. Hard.

Dale recently decided to pack up her home of 21 years and move south. A few days before her move, it dawned on her that she needed help if she was going to get all her belongings out of her house in time for the closing.  I planned an overnight visit and between us, we packed about 35 boxes. Before we accomplished that, though, there was a lot of fear that it couldn’t be done.

Joy was about to have a very important meeting with someone whose help could be critical in her career.  She was pretty nervous about presenting her ideas for a book, as well as her theories on leadership and corporate change.  During a previous, brief chat, he was interested, but would he remain so?

Dale and I got her packed and ready for her move, Joy got through her call with the influential person, and I’m gonna walk 67 1/2 miles in Spain in 33 days.   How?  Each of us has decided to redefine what success means to us:  One small victory at a time.

Breaking a seemingly overwhelming task into manageable and visible accomplishments works like magic. When Dale’s lower lip would quiver, threatening to turn into a meltdown, I’d jump up and clear out a large cabinet in the kitchen so she had a visible sign of progress.  While packing up the spice jars helped, seeing an empty glass-fronted dish cabinet helped more.  Every so often, we’d go for the “high visual impact” task in order to keep ourselves motivated.

Joy decided, shortly before her call with Mr. Influential, that “if I’m still breathing at the end of the call, I’ve won.”  Not only was she breathing, but good things are likely to come out of that conversation.

When I got home from today’s walk, I noticed that despite adding the hill and distance, I got home in the same amount of time my walk normally takes.  I’m walking faster and farther and my body’s getting stronger.  Day by day, hill by hill, street by street, I’m gonna get myself to Spain in the best shape I’ve been in for a long time.

Box by box, room by room, Dale’s now happily unpacking her belongings in her new home in North Carolina.  When she feels as though it’ll never end, she hangs a picture or rolls out a new carpet.  Visual victories, those quick and easily noticeable improvements, keep her motivated to tackle the boring stuff like sorting through those darned spices.

Breath by breath, Joy’s moving her book and business projects forward, and I have no doubt we’ll be seeing her book in airport bookstores soon, and reading about her ground-breaking leadership work in the business press, too.

Redefining success so that there are no failures is the key to staying motivated.  For Joy, just coming out of a scary meeting still breathing was about as big a success as she could imagine.  For Dale, it was seeing an empty cabinet in her old home and a picture on the wall in her new one.  For me, it’s literally putting one foot in front of the other.  How can YOU redefine success in your life?