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It’s January 10th. By now, odds are you’ve already fallen down on some of your resolutions. To that end, I want to talk about two of my goals that I can almost guarantee were more delayed than yours are, and the takeaways I have from them.
When my boys were born, I set a goal to earn my black belt and write a book by the time they turned five. They’re sixteen now, almost seventeen, and I finally reached both of those milestones - a mere eleven years later than I planned.
Let’s unpack that.
In hindsight, the black belt goal was ambitious, but realistic. The book goal was naive at best.
Please indulge me for a minute while we play “Storytime with Mr. B”.
I had been training in Kempo for a little less than a year when my boys were born. I don’t remember what belt I was, probably orange or green, but I went to the dojo a lot. As long as grading permitted, I was still a teacher at the time, I spent about 10 hours a week there across four days.
By the time they turned four, I had earned my brown belt. And there I would stay for the next 12 years.
So what happened? Around the time the boys turned four, my career as a teacher ended and I had to rebuild myself. I ended up exploring ADHD coaching and pursuing a second Masters in Counseling. At the same time, my mom fell very ill and eventually passed away. Oh, and my car burned down.
It was a lot to absorb, and eventually led to me leaving the dojo because I didn’t have time for it. No regrets, though, because that road eventually led me to where I am now. And I am both better at my ADHD work than I was at teaching, and find it more fulfilling.
In June of 2018, the dojo lost one of its members, and I attended the funeral. Which led me to reconnect with Master Phil, my instructor, and return my training. By the time I had knocked the rust off, and ranked up to just below black belt, COVID hit and the world shut down. Taking class over Zoom and in parking lots without the ability to actually interact with each other doesn’t make for the best training.
Things were mostly back to normal by 2022, and told me I should prepare to test for Black belt at the end of the year. I did. But in March of that year, my son’s OCD spiked and by July he would be in McLean Hospital’s OCDi Jr program, coming home that October. Thankfully, it worked and he got better.
But the whole experience left an impact on our family, and I spent much of the rest of the year managing the lingering effects on his twin brother while also helping to care for my dad who was sick at the time. (Eventually, everyone got better, but I was pretty burned out.) And so, I told Master Phil that I wasn’t going to be ready for December. It broke my heart.
He told me not to worry, and that the Black Belt test would come when I was ready. That happened this past December. It was a seven hour test. I had bronchitis. It sucked. But I passed. I had a lot of mixed emotions in the moment, mostly guilt and shame for it taking so long. But when I took that first Black belt class, I knew I belonged there.
Takeaway #1:
People say that a goal without a due date is just a dream. I say a goal that you keep working toward regardless of a lapsed timeline will be reached eventually. Just keep moving forward.
As for the book, mostly I was naive. I had a good idea for a fantasy novel. It’s still good, actually. But I didn’t realize how big of an undertaking writing a book is, and I also didn’t yet know that I had ADHD. It was honestly more of a dream than a goal.
But then my teaching career ended, I started to move into ADHD work, and I developed the Wall of Awful model. When I presented it for the first time on a professional stage, I was immediately asked if I was writing a book. I wasn’t ready to then, I barely had enough content to talk about it for an hour, but as time went on, the concept grew.
And, as you know, as time went by I also ended up pretty burned out. One thing I knew at the time was that I wouldn’t get out of burnout if I didn’t have something to head towards that felt like growth. Enter Alex Hughes Capell. We had interacted on Twitter (back when it was good), and she posted about being for hire as a ghost writer. I contacted her, and she was excited about the project. She had heard of, and been helped by, my Wall of Awful model, and wanted more insight into it. With some financial help from my newly recovered dad, I hired her. But, she’s my co-writer, not my ghost writer. Her name is on the book just like mine.
That partnership led to a publishing deal with the Balance imprint of Hachette Book Group at the start of last year. The book comes out in September.
Takeaway #2:
Goals aren’t met without support. Without my dad, I don’t hire Alex. Without Alex, I don’t write the book. Heck, without Caroline Maguire, who I didn’t even mention, I don’t get my amazing agent Michele, and without Michele I definitely don’t get a deal with Hachette. Figure out who is on your team. Go build one if you have to. We go further together than we do alone.
Takeaway # 3:
Forgiveness and permission. To me they’re two sides of the same coin. I basically see permission as proactive forgiveness.
Let’s start with forgiveness-
The weeks running up to the black belt test were pretty trying for me with regard to my emotions and my self-talk. Spending 11 years as a brown belt is kind of absurd, and I beat myself up for it a bit. Getting bronchitis a month before the test, and watching all the growth I had gained from working on my cardio, at the request of my sensei, wither away didn’t help. The Saturday class a week before the test, I was so in my head that I couldn’t do anything right and was so frustrated, embarrassed, and ashamed of my performance that I came to my lesson the following Monday in a foul mood.
Phil was good humored about it and told me not to worry about it, perhaps not seeing the effect the press of that decade of delay was having on me because he knew how much work I had put in, and knew my skill and ability even if I was off for a day.
His graciousness about it helped me forgive myself, not just for the poor performance. And although it took me a little longer to forgive myself for the decade of delay, I’ve mostly gotten there. I’m comfortable in the Black Belt classes, and standing in the front of the class observing techniques rather than in the rows doing them with the lower ranks.
Forgiving ourselves for our short-term errors and side-quests is critical if we want to reach our goals in the long run.
And permission is just as important. I had it in my head that because I’m a pretty good writer and had been an English teacher, I had to write my book on my own. But I just wasn’t doing it. I was doing a lot of other things - this podcast, working with clients, school and business trainings, parent workshops, summit appearances, appearances on other podcasts… you get the idea - but I wasn’t writing a book.
Eventually I had to realize it was because my time was needed elsewhere. Meeting Alex, and learning about what she did, gave me permission to ask for and accept help in writing the book. (So did learning about just how many experts in their field work with ghost writers to get their books done.)
Giving ourselves permission to get help, make mistakes, do things in ways that work for us but are maybe outside of the norm, and change or even disregard our goals is all part of meeting with success.
Thank you for listening (reading), I hope you found this useful. Have a pleasant day.
