Stretching

It was a beautiful day today. Yesterday’s rains left blue skies and clouds in shades of white and gray. Yet, I didn’t want to take a walk. I could have come up with many excuses, but I made a commitment. I set a goal to walk and blog everyday whether I wanted to or not. My daily discipline of writing is helping me build the skills I need to meet my daily, yearly, and five-year goals.

I want to master the ability to write a book. It is slow going and frustrating, but if it were easy everyone would be doing it. In his book, Drive: The surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel H. Pink says that the best predictor of success is something called “grit”—the persistence or passion for meeting long-term goals.

I set a goal to write 2 books and publish 5 in the next year. This seems optimistic since I have yet to finish one of the 3 books I have been working on. The purpose of a goal is to stretch. It’s like doing exercises. If you never stretch your muscles and reach higher than you think you can, you will never build any strength. Julius Irving, the fifth-highest scorer in professional basketball history said:

“Being professional is doing the things you love to do on the days you don’t feel like doing them.”

I set a goal to write a book and blog because I finally had the freedom to do what I really wanted to do. Then I found out that I don’t always love to do what I wanted to do. So I’m stretching and reaching to see how far I can go.

50 minutes walking