Tag: yourpace

Building Houses and Pacing vs Pushing Yourself (10-1-25)

This wasn’t the blog I intended to write this week, but I was driving into work on Tuesday and the universe told me this is the story that needs told.  This week is about building houses and the balance between pushing and pacing yourself.

Pretend for a minute that you build houses.  You’ve been building a house since January 1st.  It’s a large and difficult job, and you’ve been grinding day in and day out.  So far, you’ve made good progress.  Now you find out there will need to be some last-minute changes on top of the unfinished work you already have.  You know you should pace yourself, but there is so much stuff to do that you begin overly pushing yourself.  You are working hard and working long hours.  You get tired.  Your work gets a little sloppy.  At one point you’re so tired that as you are hammering nails you hit your hand and break all the bones in it.  You get the house done before the end of the year, but it’s not exactly your best work, you have broken bones, and you are spending the end of the year hoping you can heal a bit before starting the process all over again.

Let’s make some connections.  We may not be building houses, but I think it’s safe to say that we all have been running hard this year.  It’s been another year of high expectations and doing more with less.  I’ve seen all of us work and push and work and push to deliver for the people we serve.  With all that said, we are now kicking off Q4, and that is always a mad dash to the end of the year.  In the midst of this mad dash, I want us to finish strong, not broken.  I want us to finish the year and be ready for rest, not needing to heal whether that is physically or mentally.  What we build matters, AND the people who do the building matter too.

The challenge: How can ensure you are pacing yourself vs pushing yourself to the point where it becomes hazardous to your health?

Bonus challenge: If you are a leader, how are you setting up the environment so your people can deliver without harming themselves?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Running YOUR Race and the Permission to not be Perfect (2-2-22)

This week I want to kick-off a series inspired by obstacle course racing hobby.  We’ll start with giving people permission to not be perfect and running YOUR race.

This past weekend I completed the Abominable Snow Race.  I did the Yeti Challenge consisting of 2 laps of the course which equals 11.6 miles of running/hiking through snowy forests with a lot of hills, 48 obstacles, cold temps (3 degrees at the start and a high of 20), and about 5 hours for me to complete.  This is the longest obstacle course race I had ever done, so I was nervous leading up to it.  Alice, my wise 9 year old daughter, gave me a pep talk.  She said, “This isn’t about winning, dad.  This isn’t about getting every obstacle right.  You just have to do your race at your pace.  That’s all you got to do.”  I had never had any delusions of winning.  Still, I was putting pressure on myself to have the perfect race, to ace every obstacle, to be fast, and to put in an awesome performance.  Alice’s words were exactly what I needed.  They gave me permission to not be perfect.  They were a reminder that this wasn’t about anyone else.  This was about me and my growth.  As I did the race, I failed 8 obstacles, was so much slower than I wanted to be, and dang was it ugly.  BUT, I ran my race and I FINISHED!  While I’m still sore, I’m also incredibly proud of myself because I couldn’t have done this a few months ago.  My effort and my growth is what matters, not perfection. 

How does this connect with work?  I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get concerned with being perfect.  I become obsessed with this idea that a mistake or a flaw will negate everything I do.  These thoughts paralyze me.  Do you ever feel that way?   Throughout my life, I’ve realized I don’t need to be perfect.  I just have to be willing to try.  I have to be willing to keep moving, even if the journey if filled with mistakes.  Vulnerability moment.  I’m trying to figure out my newish role, especially in the midst of business units merging together.  There are new processes, changes, and problems popping up from every direction.  I started to feel a bit like a failure, because I wasn’t perfect with all these things.  The other day I spoke to my boss and said, “Am I doing okay?  I just feel like there’s all this stuff right now that I don’t have a handle on.  Should I?  It just feels like I’m messing stuff up, like I’m not good.”  Similar to Alice, my boss more or less said, “You’re doing fine.  You can’t expect to be perfect right now with all this stuff popping up.  You’re good.  Keep moving forward.”  It was permission to not be perfect.  It was permission to not have everything figured out, and that made all the difference.  It was a reminder to keep moving forward.  It was a reminder to focus on my effort and my growth, because those are the things that will get me to where I want to go and help me become who I want to be.

The challenge:  Are you giving yourself permission to not be perfect?  Are you giving other people permission to not be perfect?  Are you running YOUR race?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry