[powerpress]
Let’ s redefine “goal.”
I don’t need to change the word goal if you happen to like that word. Let’s replace it with whatever you’d like:
- Success
- Lifestyle
- Fame
- Fortune
- Dream
Let me put it this way. Episode number one last week of the Repossible Podcast (that’s this one, the you’re listening to right now, by the way) wasn’t really my goal. However, it was the catalyst to reach my goal because my goal is not perfection, my goal is practice.
In fact, it’s my goal with the podcast, it’s my goal with you, dear listener, and it’s my goal with most things: I want to continuously get better, keep learning, grow together with the wisdom of others, believe what I see and see what I believe, learn, thrive, succeed, fail, dream, wake up, love, live, laugh and most of all go from impossible to possible to repossible.
But I don’t want to do it once. I want to live it. I don’t want to have One Great Day. I want to have endless glorious moments Every Single Day. Not every moment is a highlight, but then they’re highlighted by the ones that are not. Does that make sense? It’s a mix of impossible and possible and shaking it up in a paper bag, ideally with some salt and maybe a little butter, and out comes Repossible.
I know, I’m vague. I make bizarre references to paper bags and butter. But I know what I’m talking about. It’s an insatiable curiosity to thrive and feel the hairs on my neck go up when it happens. That’s what I’m after.
I’m going to read here a chapter from my book Every Single Day that’s titled Practice is Perfect because it’s what I want to do here on the Repossible Podcast. I’m not striving for perfection, I’m striving for practice. Because, at least as I see it:
Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect. Practice is Perfect.
I suppose, now that I’ve started this podcast, now that I have finally started something that I wanted to do for at least the past two years, now comes the even bigger question: Now what?
Let’s take my dear friend the marathon runner. One might think, well, he might even think, that the marathon, or worse yet, some certain time goal for completing that marathon, is his goal–or his perfect.
I’m just going to blurt it out in hopes it might sink in through blunt simplicity: his practice is his perfection.
When he is practicing, when he is running, he is perfect. He not only has already achieved his goal, he repeatedly achieves his goal. How often? Do you really have to ask? Every Single Day.
This is even crazier, but he might even achieve his perfect when he reaches that completion time. But then what? Has he reached perfection? Yay! Oh, but now what?
Yeah, exactly. Now what?
Could it be that reaching perfection could even be a “bad” thing? Marathon guy might then do what? He could either:
- Keep going and strive for better finish times.
- Be satisfied with his achievement and stay level.
- Relish in the accomplishment and slow down or quit altogether (as he achieved his goal, so he’s done and can move on).
What if his Practice were his Perfect?
What if, Every Single Day, he achieved his goal? What if it weren’t necessarily the goal in the most commonly used sense of the word, but it was just a habit or running was just a part of who he had become? What if running were the goal? Running became just a part of what he does, who he is, and now he can build on top of that and become more because he is achieving his goal all of the time and it’s taking little or no effort or decision-making power or striving or trying?
He is building a solid foundation from which he can further excel. But we’re not talking about speed or strength or even health or benefits.
When has he reached perfection?
When perfection is no longer his goal.
The practice is his perfection. He has risen above the “end goal” and is to a point where it is not a question of whether or not he achieves some time or some physical shape or something that occurs now and again.
The secret, if you’ve dared to read this chapter, is that he will then achieve those goals, the time, the health, the whatever it is that he wanted, but they are just icing on the cake and, sure, he enjoys them, but his perfection is his practice. His wins and successes are par for the course, they are just side effects of his consistent perfection.
- Possible: practice
- Impossible: perfection without practice
- Repossible: practice is perfect