I know we’re really doing the final look-back/wrap later than I thought. But look! We’re here. We’re doing it.
So, I did this huge project – sort of on a whim, that sort of just grew and it became this whole thing.
There have been *many* posts dedicated to this project on this blog. If I talked about something so much and so often, I had to have taken something away from it, right?
So, let’s reflect.
If I were to put my lessons into words (which I am doing now), I would say here are some takeaways:
1) Be flexible!
I was going to say have plans A, B, C (and maybe even more). However, I don’t think you actually need to make that many plans. Make your plan, but see places where it might need to change. Keep ideas on the back-burner. It might involve a lot of thinking on the fly.
I knew that anything could happen – weather, race cancellations, injuries. You never know what’s possible. So, I doubled up on some weekends and tried to bank some races in the beginning. That way, whenever anything did happen, I was ready to take it on!
I’m not trying to say we should waste too much time thinking about bad things that conceivably might happen. I’m just saying you might as well be flexible because things in the world are going to happen and change no matter what. But all you can change is your attitude. And being willing to roll with the flow is only going to make things easier on you and your life.
2) You decide what’s possible.
There were tons of excuses as to why this wouldn’t be feasible. Obviously the expenses were going to be an issue. Even just the actual planning was tough. I also changed from working day to night shift during the year. They actually both had their own pros and cons as to how they were easier or harder for doing the races. But sleep was tough! Committing to actually waking up (or staying up) to that crazy time of the morning 52 times (or almost 52 – since some where at night) – that in itself was a big deal.
And perhaps it may have actually been smarter to take some of the possible obstacles into consideration. (I lucked out like crazy that the money worked out, ’cause I totally committed to the project before making a budget or thinking that through – eep!).
However, I still have to say, it would’ve been easy to get hung up in obstacles. But I said I would do something, crossed any obstacles necessary, and I did it.
To me, that was the biggest takeaway of the project – we decide what’s possible.
(That feels both empowering and foolish to say… but maybe true…)