The title of this post may sound a little strange, so let me first get into a little back story of something I witnessed last week..
Driving to my office as I do every morning, I watched a chipmunk run up from the bank of the lake on one side of the four lane highway. Moving quickly, he ran in front of my car… ducked under a truck in the next lane… Took a quick break in the meridian.. Then bolted around another car… Followed by a quick heart wrenching dash in front of a car in the last lane. Finally, as he reached the side of the road, he gave himself a celebratory leap for joy… At which time, a pickup truck swerved over the side of the road and took him out…
Ok, that wasn’t really too inspiring in the end, but it made me think about projects, and goals, and a few other things like that.
Everybody has goals and projects… As a freelancer, I work on projects all day… And just like everybody, I have goals for my various personal aspects.. Goals for my various sites… Goals for my life… Goals for my family…
The cars are your average roadblocks, regardless if they’re client related… Personal related… Skill related… Or just blocks from unexpected sources.
In this case, the chipmunk knew the cars would be there, so you can take a lesson from there.. You know you will face some sort of obstacle, so keep your eye out for you, and it won’t take you by surprise. In fact, if you watch for obstacles early enough, you can even see the obstacles coming from miles away.
Now for the sad part of the story, the pickup that swerved and took the chipmunk out… That represents the obstacle you can never see coming… Maybe if that chipmunk had continued into the forest, he would have been safe, but he had to stop and get ahead of himself didn’t he? He had to shout and say “Hey everybody!! I made it!!” When he really wasn’t done… That’s like saying “Hey, this project is done… But there’s really a whole other part of it left to do that I kind of forgot about”.
So what’s the moral of this whole article? Basically… Plan ahead… Keep an eye out… Keep your focus… And don’t get too ahead of yourself til the job is done.
