Obstacles and Celebrating Progress/Small Wins (10-15-25)

Last week was about embracing the grimy path to success. This week is about failed rope climbs, conquered warped walls, and celebrating progress and small wins.

I failed the warped wall 3 times at Frontline OCR back in May, which resulted in some nasty friction burns on my leg. With that in mind, I came into the recent Midwest OCR looking for redemption. The first obstacle I ran into was the rope climb. I did not complete this obstacle. HOWEVER, I’m so excited, because for the first time in my life, I actually hooked my feet correctly. I got further than I’ve ever made it. Then, when I got to the warped wall, I finally beat that thing! I latched onto the rope and knew I wasn’t letting go until I had finished climbing the wall. I had so much adrenaline running through my body after completing the wall that I thought I might pass out.

What does this have to do with anything? It would have been easy for me to call my race a failure. I failed obstacles. I was slower than I wanted to be. I didn’t win. However, I view it a success because of the progress and small wins I had. Now think about work for a minute. How often do you pause to celebrate progress and small wins? Be honest. If you’re anything like me, it’s so easy to get focused on the end goal with a win/lose mentality that I don’t pause at work. Then, I find myself feeling stuck or like a failure, all because I haven’t opened my eyes to the progress that has been made. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? It doesn’t have to be this way. We can all be celebrating small wins on a more regular basis.

The challenge: How will you ensure you are celebrating progress and small wins along the way?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Goals and Celebrating Progress (2-5-25)

This is the last in our series about goals. This week is about celebrating progress.

If I’m being honest, I’m not particularly happy with how January played out for me. There was travel, a lot of all-day workshops, and an illness that knocked me on my butt for like 1.5 weeks. It left me feeling like I hadn’t accomplished anything meaningful on the work or life front.

I was talking about something work related and sharing how I felt like a failure and the person replied with, “But look at all the progress that has been made. It’s not done yet, but it’s come so far. In fact, you’re so much further than I thought you’d be at this point on it.” It was a great reminder that I had been so focused on the finish line that I had never paused to appreciate my progress.

Let’s make some connections. Have you ever had a week or month go by, looked up, and then felt like a complete failure? Please tell me I’m not the only one 😉 It’s easy to get so lost in the daily grind that you don’t ever realize that all those steps you have taken add up. I’d bet that if you would just pause a moment to realize how far you’ve come, you would feel completely different.

The challenge: Will you appreciate and celebrate the progress you have made?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Night Obstacle Course Racing, Headlamps, and Moving Forward (5-24-23)

Last week I concluded a series about lifting by sharing a story from a recent nighttime obstacle course race. Lindsey Caruthers reached out to me and suggested there was more to tell. That got me thinking, and now this week is about running a night obstacle course race, headlamps, and moving forward.

A few days before the race, I got my hands on the course map. I could see that it was going to be around 4 miles, mainly running through woods. I knew there was going to be a lot of mud. I saw the names of the obstacles, so I had an idea of what was going to come my way. When I started the race, the sun was still out, so for the first 30 minutes I could see quite a bit in front of me, including the obstacles. Then, it got dark. That’s when everyone turned on their headlamps. Now, instead of being able to see out in the distance, I was only able to see the few feet in front of me. While this may have slowed me down a bit, it didn’t stop me. While I couldn’t see as much as I once could, I could still see enough in front of me to keep going. I could still see the marked trail. I could see the obstacles as I approached them. I could remember the obstacles on the map to estimate where I was on my journey. I was able to stay focused on taking the steps in front of me over and over again, until finally I reached the finish line.

How does this connect to anything? I’d argue that organizational change management efforts or leading projects is a lot like running an obstacle course race in the dark. It would be so much easier if we always had a goal AND a clearly outlined path we could easily follow to get to that goal. However, it doesn’t work that way. You might have a general idea of where you are trying to go, but you like don’t have a clear line of sight to get there. The path isn’t going to be easy either. It’s going to be filled with mud and obstacles like resource demands, difficult stakeholders, last minute pivots, etc. It’s easy to freeze and become paralyzed when things aren’t 100% clear. The thing to remember though, is you don’t have to be able to see every step on the path clearly. All you really need is a good head lamp in the form of a clear milestone or next step to take. As long as you have this headlamp, you can keep moving forward, even if things are a little dark and tough.

The challenge: How can you keep your headlamp focused on the immediate next step, so you can keep going?

Bonus thought: I can’t remember where I saw this, but it’s always stuck with me. I saw a presentation about how to successfully drive organizational change management. They said you needed 3 things: A clear vision of where you’re going, a clear why that people can rally around, and an IMMEDIATE next step the audience can take toward that vision. If folks get stuck, it’s because you don’t have those 3 things.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Parenting and Recognizing Progress (3-31-21)

Last week was about parenting and showing appreciation. This week is about parenting and recognizing progress. Alice can have challenges regulating her emotions sometimes. She can go from 0-100 miles of fury per hour in .2 seconds (I’m sure we’ve all been there). The other night she got really upset and exploded. My wife and I talked to her about this and how she needs to do better. Alice responded, “I’m trying really hard to get better at calming down. You keep telling me I’m not doing this right. I’m not perfect, but you’re not recognizing that I’m making any progress.”

My wife and I sat in silence for a moment. First, I was so proud of Alice for feeling brave and confident enough to say this. Second, I was impressed that she understood herself so well and knew she needed her progress to be seen. Third, I felt like a bit of a jerk. I was so focused on the problem that I lost sight of the journey. I lost sight of how far Alice has come and how hard she is working every day. I lost sight of how important it is for me to show her I see her and recognize her progress (maybe I should reread my blog from last week 😉). After we regained our ability to speak, my wife and I told Alice she was right. We pivoted the conversation to focus on the progress she is making AND how we can help her keep moving in the right direction.

How does this connect to work? I see connections at the individual level and at the leadership level. As an individual, how often do you focus on your shortcomings vs. your progress? This is me all day. I can get obsessive about the misses, while never seeing the tremendous growth I should be proud of. As a leader, how often do we treat teammates the way my wife and I initially treated Alice? How often do we spend most of our effort on judging the work and pointing out all of the shortcomings vs. recognizing the positive progress that has been made? As leaders, we will always be able to see shortcomings in others, because we are all human. If all the person ever hears is us calling out their shortcomings, what will that do to them and our relationship with them?

The challenge: Are you recognizing progress or are you just seeing shortcomings?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry