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Choose to Deliver


Later today, my three oldest kids have their first race, a "splash and dash", which is just a triathlon without the biking segment. To say they are nervous about the competition would be an understatement. They all have individually asked to withdraw their names from the race, saying they need more time to train. My six-year-old was walking around the house last night breathing into a paper bag saying, "I'm just not ready for this!"

While she may be just a tad on the dramatic side, this will be the largest stage on which any of them have ever competed or performed, and they are all internally struggling with questions. Am I ready? Have I prepared enough? What if I fail in front of all those people? I think those are questions we all face throughout our lives, but too often they cause us to withdraw our names from the race.

As a father, I have mixed feelings about their apprehension and doubts. Although it's not easy to see my kids struggle with anxiety about this, I love that they care enough to be nervous and are forced to wrestle with their doubts and fears. It's this precise internal battle that makes me love sports so much. It's race day: it doesn't matter if you had a bad night's sleep, if it's raining, or if you simply just don't feel like running today. You must deliver. Good, bad or ugly, whatever you've prepared up to this point must be shipped, and your work and preparation will be tested in competition.

What a great lesson for life. How often do we push back internal deadlines because today is inconvenient or uncomfortable?

"I'll go back and finish my degree next year."

"June is a weird month because the kids just got out of school and my spending changes. Next month I will begin my budget."

"Today is national Sugar Cookie Day, I'll start my diet tomorrow."

There will always be a reason to push off until tomorrow what should be executed today. I meet with plenty of people in their 50's and 60's who are just now starting to plan for retirement after telling themselves for decades, "I need to get a plan for retirement".

There is never a convenient time to do difficult but important tasks. There's no easy time to quit your job and start the business you've dreamed about for years. There's no painless season to give up your social life and take night classes to further your career. To start a family, to begin a workout regimen, to make a difference—life won't blow a starting whistle for you. You just have to choose to deliver whatever you have today. Then you can adapt, adjust, and come back tomorrow and deliver it again, hopefully just a little better than it was today.

Perfect is the enemy of progress. We want to wait until we know our efforts will succeed. We don't want to compete unless we know we will win (this has been a huge hurdle for me my whole life, more on this another time). The beauty of race day is the outcome is unknown and there is a finite timeline before the race, at the end of which there is no more practice, no more preparation, we just have to run. There may be critics, haters, and those waiting for you to fail. Run anyway, because if you don't, the naysayers have already won. If you listen carefully, you'll know what you have to do. Make the choice to deliver it.

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