This week I represented the Ballarat Tech School at the Committee for Ballarat, Round Table dinner with special guest Steve Hooker. If you’ve read any of my blogs before then you’ll know that this sort of event is completely my jam! I love inspirational speakers. I love catching up with lots of awesome people. I love a free dinner. This round table event ticks all the boxes and Steve Hooker was a fantastic speaker.
To be honest, I didn’t know who he was before this dinner. My ignorance has more to do with being from New Zealand than anything else. Steve Hooker is most famous for winning gold for Australia in pole vault at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Despite the fact that as of 2nd July, I’m officially a citizen of Australia, I’ll still forever root for New Zealand in any and all sports. My Nana would pretty much disown me if I didn’t.
I listened to the Imperfect Podcast interview with Steve as research a few weeks earlier and started to become a bit of a fan girl. I was excited to hear him talk at the dinner and rightly so because he was great.
Steve broke his talk into two parts. The lead up to the Olympics and then the lessons he’d learnt in the 12 years following that he wished he’d known at the time. Steve had a couple of nuggets that I really resonated with. First was being able to visualise what you’re trying to achieve. You need to believe that you can complete the task. In his case it was becoming the best pole vaulter in the world. He would run through the perfect jump in his head, every day for the 12 months leading up to the Beijing Olympics as a way mentally prepare for the live event.
It's like rehearsing. If you can imagine yourself doing the jump, or getting the new job, or speaking on stage then it makes sense that we constantly and consistently rehearse the vision as a way of preparing for the actual event. It's almost impossible to rehearse for something that you can’t see which is why being able to see the desired outcome is so important. We need the vision, how we get there has flexibility, but the strong, clear vision gives us the purpose to act everyday. ‘80% of success is showing up’ as Woody Ellen put it.
If our vision is blurry or feels unachievable then we are possibly working toward the wrong thing. It should be sharp, focused. We need it to be so we can create a path to get there otherwise we’re aiming for a moving target. We need to be able to see the successful outcome as motivation because aiming for really big outrageous goals is really hard work. Building a bridge between our current reality and our future aspirations can feel huge.
Steve had this great analogy about a soccer pitch which captured his transition from pre to post competition life. Imagine that you're standing on a soccer pitch wanting to score a goal. You're not in the middle of the pitch but way up the opposition's end, you look back at the goal and it's so small, you can barely see it. How the hell are you going to get this tiny ball all the way down there? Here the trick, if you turn around there is a massive goal right in front of you that you can simply tap the ball into.
Sometimes we need to strive for those massive goals that are so far away but the more joy we find in mediocrity, the more of those easy goals we’re going to make. This leans in beautifully to my theory on celebrating average. Appreciating the little wins. Smelling the roses as my Mum likes to say. The reality is that often these incredible human achievements, like being able to jump 6.06m using a fibre glass stick, aren’t as profound as you’d think. There is a feeling of relief and a sense of achievement but that doesn’t last forever.
You see this everywhere. You strive for something so massive that you think will bring you this overwhelming sense of achievement and contentment but when you finally get there, it's not as rewarding as you thought it would be. It's pretty awesome, don’t get me wrong, but it’s maybe not as transformative as you’d hoped. Being able to find joy in the journey and not just the destination is the key to a fulfilling and meaningful life.
Some of my biggest wins this week have been in the little ones. Helping students make something special on the laser cutters. Sharing in the excitement of a friend starting a new business. Doing weights at 6am in a garage with some girlfriends when it's three degrees! These are all me turning around and tapping the ball straight into the goal.
Average is where most of us exist and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The more we can appreciate the small stuff, the more joy we can extract from our lives. Taking on challenges is what gives us purpose. Convenience is a killer as Steve put it. We need to challenge ourselves as a practice. As a way to move forward meaningfully and to create a more positive impact on the world we need to keep visualising those outcomes and showing up.
Using the soccer analogy again, we can do both. We can work toward a far off, big goal, but don’t forget about the sweet win right behind you.
