How to Win in Life
I (Caleb) love the movie, “Miracle” produced by Walt Disney and staring Kurt Russel. It is about the journey of the USA 1980 olympic hockey team and the coach Herb Brooks. In the movie, they faced almost insurmountable odds and over came the challenges to beat the Russian team that was unbeaten. How?
Have a vision
Having a vision is key. Without a vision, you aren’t getting very far. If things get hard, you are toast without a vision. We know this all too well; For the first serval years of life together, we had no vision…lots of ideas, but no vision. We wasted so much time not having a big picture of what we wanted for each of us individually and as a family. In the movie, “Miracle”, Kurt Russel’s character, Coach Herb Brooks, had a vision and that was to beat the Russian Hockey team; Every decision had that vision as a guiding force. Same thing with your vision…what do you want out of life, or a better way to put this is, what will your legacy be?
Make Goals
Goals fund your vision. We have discussed that visions are very important, but just like your life with a vision is just drifting along, so will your visions without goals. In the movie, “Miracle”, some of the goals the team had to accomplish were team chemistry, stamina, and learning to play differently. Goals start breaking down our vision into smaller pieces. After we created our vision, the goals didn’t just fall into place. sometimes you don’t know were to start. That’s why you need other people in your circle that have similar visions or at least people that have some crossover with yours; This really helped us when it came to making goals. Someone who might see something in a different way than you or someone who is further down the road than you, can be invaluable to helping you make and refine your goals.
Mess Up
You are going to mess up. You aren’t going to get your goals right the first time, so get over that fear now. You have never been where you are going, so why would you expect yourself to get it right? Amy and I have a messed up a lot. The key is when you’re learning from those mistakes, making changes, and trying again. It is just part of the process. The hockey players didn’t get it right the first time. My favorite scene in the movie, “Miracle”, is when Kurt Russel’s character, Coach Herb Brooks, is trying to teach them about teamwork and commitment. The players aren’t getting it and coach Brooks has them run the same skating drill again and again until they finally get it. That’s why you need that vision to guide you until you get the right goal to help you obtain your vision. But, you have to start in order to see what works and what doesn’t.
Take Action
Taking action is when you break down you goals into action items. You can adjust the action items as needed in order to obtain your goals and, in turn, you can bring your vision to life! The wonderful part about taking action, is you get to analyze what is working well and do more of that and change what isn’t working. Successes breeds successes, so at the beginning, go for small wins. You will start to like that feeling of accomplishment. Little action start stacking up and, like the old saying goes, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ and neither is the life your capable of living. The 1980 USA Olympic hockey team didn’t go from a bunch of college kids to the team that beat the best team in the world overnight, it took thousands of hours, pain, and commitment to fulfill the vision!
Your Choice
In the end, coach Herb Brooks could not play the hockey game for his players, they had to take what they had learned and play the game of a lifetime. It’s your choice what you do, no-one can live your life for you…that’s your job, to live YOUR life! Let me ask you a question. if you don’t care about changing your life and creating a better vision for yourself, then fine, but what about the people you care about? Some people who are reading this may not have kids, but our transformational experience has been focused on the big question of, “how do we want to show up for them?”. What life tools do we want to leave with them? We want to leave a growth mindset, an open mind, and the freedom to be who they are meant to be. As we are learning, these lessons aren’t taught they are caught. So we must have a growth mindset, keep an open mind, and challenge ourselves to become the people we want to be.