A River, Not A Bucket

“Are we there yet?”

One silver lining of the lockdowns and not being able to travel anywhere was that no one had to hear their kids asking inane questions about time and space.

“How much longer?” 

“When will we get there?”

“Why is it taking so long?”

But in a way I often hear grown ups asking a version of “Are we there yet?” They don’t use these words but I repeatedly hear a desire to close a chapter on areas of work that, quite frankly, can never have an ending.

Never Ending Story

As soon as a particular piece of work is completed then the next step needs to be climbed. The current goal might be:

• Hire the right person for the tax team
• Complete the School Development Plan
• Effectively deal with that complaint that’s keeping you up at night

But as soon as that is done (and you will get there) there’ll be a new piece of the jigsaw to bring on board, a new plan to develop and a new challenge that could stop you sleeping.

You all know that coaching is about moving forwards to a desired goal, aim or outcome that isn’t currently in place. As part of the process it’s important to understand what benefits achieving the goal will bring about. Having clarity about that allows us to properly motivate ourselves to take the required action.

But.

Even though you may have absolute clarity about the goal, and the rainbow of joy that achieving it will generate, I have words of caution about that hoped for achievement.

There is no promised land. 

As soon as you achieve that goal you will move on. Instantly you realise that there are new goals to be reached. And that new goal wipes everything away. And so the journey continues.

This is absolutely fine, completely normal and a perfect nightmare.

It’s great because it spurs you on to bigger and better things. But it’s a problem because it prevents you from enjoying the achievement of each bigger and better thing.

Eat My Goal

You often hear successful football players, and I mean the serial winners, talking about their past glories and admitting to not fully enjoying cup wins, league titles and other important victories because their mindset was always about moving on to the next goal. Literally, they were always thinking about the next goal.

As soon as Manchester United had won the 2008 Champions League, Ryan Giggs gathered his teammates into a huddle and told them to remember the jubilant feeling they had right there and then. 

Not in order to enjoy it but so that they remind themselves of it next season and so rekindle the passion, find the drive and determination to give their everything to go again the following year.

He was already planning for the next season and they hadn’t even left the pitch.

Thank You, Next

The next job is always immediately around the corner. But perhaps we need to put it off for a while. Just long enough to enjoy the fruits of the labours we’ve currently been working on. 

If we don’t put something in place to help us slow down and benefit from our achievements it probably won’t happen.

Ways to accommodate or perhaps alleviate the crushing disappointment of having to move on include:

• Taking time for reflection on the journey it took to achieve the goal
• Considering levels of gratitude for the ups and downs on that journey
• Writing in a journal about how reaching the goal made you feel and what it means to have achieved it
• Taking time to bathe in the glory of the outcome - really enjoy it
• Recognising that the list of jobs is never ending and accept this is okay and just a fact of life.

One way of embedding this last point is to stop looking at life as a bucket full of stuff that needs emptying. The bucket model makes you think that one day you’ll eventually have dealt with everything in the pail, and finally emptied the thing. 

But that’s not gonna happen. The bucket is never going to be empty, so it’s the wrong metaphor to employ.

Tales From The Riverbank

A more useful analogy is to think of life as a river. A river never ends, it just keeps on flowing. 

You can deal with your section of the river while you’re in it. Extend the metaphor to recognise that all the jobs you need to do are just part of what the river sends to you. 

You’ll need to spend time:

• Catching the fish
• Clearing the weeds
• Repairing the riverbank

All of these things are jobs you have to do in the time and space that you’re in your section of the river. But it’s vital to recognise that the river still flows towards you. 

There’ll be the same or similar jobs still to do, always floating downstream. Always. 

Even on your last day in the job, standing in waist high waders in your office, by the desk, mid stream, you won’t get everything done. And because the river never stops flowing, there’ll be more jobs again tomorrow.

Embracing this metaphor allows you to do the necessary work but also to give up on attempting to finish it all. You’ll never finish everything so why try to?

Wouldn’t it be better to simply get on with the stuff that is important and enjoy what you do get done, regardless that there’ll be more again tomorrow?