One of my favorite things about the weather in Indiana is how it changes. Most of the time we actually get all 4 seasons of weather in all of their forms. We get the summer heat, the breezy spring, beautiful fall with all of its foliage and Jack Frost peaks his head about as well.
However the thing I do not like about the seasons is the changing. I do not like the in between. I do not like to wake up on "spring day" and see snow. It bothers me. I also do not like to see "cold rain" on a winters day.
To me, the seasons should have a hard switch, all except fall of course. Fall is the perfect season to me. It is crisp hoodie weather filled with harvest and bon fires. It is by far my favorite time of year. Yet it never transitions well.
It is often times fall and hot. It is often times fall and freezing. It is often times both of those things on the same day and possibly with snow.
There is a running joke about the midwest and our ability to pair hoodies or jackets with shorts and flip flops. What they do not understand is that is what it is required.
It is not what we would choose. It is not what we wish to do. It is not the best version of ourselves but it is what is required.
We try so hard to control all of the things all of the time. Yet we can't. We do not have the power to do so. The only thing we have power over is how we show up. How take care, how we plan, how we prepare, how we steward, how we love, how we communicate and how we choose personal responsibility.
That's it. But so often we excuse away our short comings of that personal responsibility with excuses of "legitimate reasons" of X, Y or Z of why we didn't do what was required. What happens when we do this is backwards momentum. We actually move away from our goals. We create habits out of deflection and victimhood.
Alex Hormozi says it best when he says it like this. "What separates men from boys is that they don't do what is convenient, they do what is required."
In seasons of change it is in our best interest to do the work that is required to benefit from the outcome that we wish to see. That means sacrifice. That means uncomfortability. That means standing in the cold rain in December when you wish it would snow, prayed for snow and believed for snow but only the rain came. That means we just do the work. The work, has to become the reward, not the outcome. The outcome will fade but who you became in the process will continue forward in a positive or negative trajectory. The beautiful thing is, you get to choose. You get to choose what that looks like. You get to choose which journey you want to have.
The funny thing about seasons is, they are coming. No matter what we do, they come. Much like the Grinch realizes that Christmas still came without boxes or bows. Seasons of change come regardless if we asked them too.
In-action is a choice. Avoidance is a choice. Deflection is a choice. Ignorance is a choice. You have a choice.
So how do you move forward? How do you know what to do?
The best way I have figured for myself is to just do the next right thing.
This is tough if you do not have a filter to help you decide what that is. It is tough if you have many areas that need tended to and are in a fire. Here is something I am trying to do, maybe it will help you too.
When I am faced with a new season, most of the time I miss all the signs that it's coming. So I just wake up one morning and am blinded by the realization that this isn't going away and then seamlessly go into a pit of doom. Once I am there. I ask myself some questions.
Am I done? Do I give up? Do I surrender? Is the work worth doing? Is the struggle worth struggling for? Am I the type of person who can't overcome this or am I the type of person that can face it and myself?
When I answer these questions it strengthens my mind, it resets my focus and my why. It gives perspective. The gift of experience is perspective and the experience I have of my life is that I have been the type of person who folded and it didn't get me where I wanted to be. I have been the opposite of all of that I wish and I can choose different....So can you.
So then, the next filter is what happens next? The right thing always honors others first. So whatever the problem you are facing. If the step you choose honors others above yourself it will always be the right step.
It is not quick. It is not easy. It is painful. It does require change and hardship but it will produce the type of human you know you have in you. The type of human that I am striving to become.
You can choose the next right thing.
Let's do that together. Do it again and again. Until one day, we wake up in the pit of doom and go right to the doing because that is who we are. People of choice, not of reaction.
Zack Schuyler
VP of Student Experience
Fortville Music Garage
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