Biting Off More Than You Can Chew

I got rocked in swim practice this morning. I mean..besides the fact that practice is at 5am on Friday’s is enough to do me in, much less not paying attention to how I was performing in practice. Today’s practice though brought me back to this thought. Pacing yourself is very important…

When swimming, you should pace yourself because if you don’t…you will crash and burnout for the rest of practice.

Here’s why…this morning we were doing drills based on our stroke count. Your stroke count is the number of strokes it takes you to get to the other side of the pool. In a 25 yard pool, when give it all I got, I can do this in 10 strokes, but on average it sits more in the 13 to 15 count area. If you can swim fast and strong with a low stroke count, you will get through the water faster and smoother.

Basically what happens is when our coach says. This next drill will be based on x number of strokes plus x seconds it takes you to swim 50 yards. It’s called a unit drill and since the water is a little chilly at times i was already thinking about the shrinkage. Anyway…then she tells us, for the next 5 times we do this you have to decrease this unit so start out conservative or else you will be dying for the rest of the drill.

So…what did I do? I thought I was swimming conservative. Little do I realize how much a breathing break on the wall does for my energy level. My unit number was 65 for the first try. Which broke down to 39seconds swimming 50 yards with a stroke count of 13 per 25 yards giving me a 26 count for the 50 yards which all equals 65 (26 strokes plus 39 seconds=65) Over the next 5 times I eventually got it down to 57 which had me at 20 strokes per 50 yards.

This my friends…killed me. I exhausted every ounce of energy I could muster. For the rest of practice I was done, spent, tired, finished…I had nothing left.

This brings me to a point in which I’m reminded of when doing business. Sometimes people make business decisions that are to big. They have bitten off more than they can chew and they got in over their heads and the decision is seen as a failure. Sometimes when this happens and you are working with others, the chances of you making another big decision might be very slim because no one else will believe that you can do it or that the idea can be done. Why? it failed the first time, why should it work the next time.

This sounds like small minded thinking and most times it can be. But the way to win is to start small enough to make an impact and to watch your decision be a winning decision. When you start small and think conservatively, you can give yourself a little room for error and growth. Then when you are ready to go big, you can take that risk with confidence and with a better plan of attack. If the big decision is a winner then great! But if it fails then at least you know you tried everything and you can now move on knowing you too can make sound decisions (even if you failed) and that you are willing to take a few calculated risks. Learning from your mistakes can lead to success as long as you keep trying.

If I had thought a little more about slowing down my swim and working my stroke count a little better, i would have made it to the end without killing myself. I also would have made it through practice a lot stronger.

The next time you go big…think it through first…oh, and if you need help working through it, shoot me an email. I’ve failed enough times to know how to win.