After breaking his leg, Joe clung to the rope which was lowered down by his friend, 300 feet at a time. In a blinding blizzard that made it impossible to communicate, Joe was lowered over a snow lip and dangled over a crevasse. Unable to communicate with his buddy and not feeling the usual tug on the rope signaling that is was safe for him to descend, Simon was forced to save his own life by cutting the rope.

Joe fell into the crevasse and onto a ledge where he remained for two more days in the cold blackness, with no way out. He kept making decisions, however, and made a crucial one: go down farther into the crevasse to get a new perspective and possibly find a tunnel out. When the sun rose the next morning he saw the sun! He crawled with his broken leg to the earth’s surface.

Following his buddy’s tracks, he crawled across the melting snow for miles. In the fifth day of the climbing ordeal and his third without water, he had frozen water all around him but could not eat it because he would become even more hypothermic. He could hear the melting snow dripping under the rocks but could not get to it. When he descended below the snow line, he found himself in a huge boulder field that went on for miles. He was forced to stand on his broken leg to get across the boulders, and he fell down over and over again.

What kept him going? He made small goals for himself.

• Get to the sandy spot in 20 minutes.
• Get to the black boulder in 15 min.
• Get to the lake in 10 min.

A series of small goals kept him going. He was passed out from exhaustion, dehydration, hypothermia and shock when a strong smell woke him out of his delirium. He was right next to the latrine they had used at their base camp. He shouted his friend’s name into the darkness. A full 7 days after setting out on their expedition, Joe was reunited with the climbing friend who had given him up for dead.

What a miracle small goals are. Look around your home. What is your decluttering goal? Pick up 5 things today and put them away. Tomorrow try 7. Get a buddy and the next day try to put away 9 or 10 things. If you persevere, those small steps will add up and you’ll reach your goal.

It’s our notion that if I do it and do it wrong, somehow that is worse than not trying at all. What will everyone think? Fear is lurking under the surface, fear that I will be rejected by others. Not that fear is a bad thing. Think about fear for a second. Everyone alive on this planet is alive today because our ancestors many moons ago had a healthy fear of things that could hurt them.

So, fear is very helpful and can keep us alive, but sometimes that fear, as with perfectionism, is out of balance and it prevents us from taking a risk where the consequence is pretty minimal.

That blog you have been meaning to write, the non-profit you want to start, the closet you want to clean out… all of these are worthwhile and are worth doing badly. What is the worst that could happen? The blog fizzles out but you learn something from it, the non-profit runs out of money but two students received a college education, and the closet project gets only half done. That’s not so bad!

Making mistakes is what connects us all to each other. I was at an industry conference a few months ago, and, out of all of the speakers that I heard, one sticks out in my mind. She was doing the introduction for the main speaker and had the wrong page of notes in her hand. She laughed and was a little flustered and simply said “oh no, I goofed this up.” She very calmly found her place and introduced the speaker very well.

I connected with her instantly because I make mistakes too. We all goof up, and isn’t it so endearing when someone just admits it and moves on? I dare you to do something and do it wrong today. Just start something. Goof up. I dare you to just start!

TODAY’S QUOTE:

“For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time to still be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”

- Alfred D. Souza

TODAY’S ASSIGNMENT:

Choose one closet and pick up everything off the floor!

My friend tried it on, the color returned to her face and she felt lighter, almost bouncy. “What’s the name of that gloss so I can buy one?” she asked. “It’s called ‘Let Go of Should.’” My friend told me that she will never forget the name of that lip gloss from her dream.

I wish my dreams were that heavy and important – this is a real story that my friend Eileen told me on Monday!

The point of the story is that most of us are pulled in so many different directions because we care about so many things and people so deeply. Even though we hear messages to take care of ourselves, put ourselves first, etc. etc., it is tough!

My wish for you today: No more “shoulds!” Allow yourself to accept yourself, just the way you are.

And my organizing tip for today: Take one room; pick up everything off the floor. Then go back to enjoying your life – it’s summer.

The movie is not a documentary but an experience that the main character and the audience live through together. According to Boyle, the climactic scene when the hiker frees himself is a joyous and exhilarating moment for everyone.

“We’ve all got our own boulders,” says Boyle. “We don’t have to go through anything as extreme as he does, but we’ve all got those moments. And if he can do it, we can all do it.”

I agree! We can all do it. I know I have things holding me back and others do also. Maybe it’s a feeling of daily frustration that’s holding you back. Maybe it’s a feeling of ineffectiveness or not getting anywhere.

Do you have any boulders?

I opened up my new purchase, Keep Going, the Art of Perseverance, by Joseph M. Marshall III, and Old Hawk compares the chokecherry tree to the cottonwood: “You have weaknesses as well as strengths. You have both because in life there is two of everything.” The cottonwood is the biggest and it is strong, but that great strength becomes its great weakness, because it stands up to the winds in the fiercest storm, but it doesn’t bend in the wind like the chokecherry can. Its branches break.

Whizzing past more houses, buildings and power lines, I thought some more about “two of everything.” Everyone and everything in the world has weakness and strength. It’s the people who are strong, not the people who are weak, who are able to admit their vulnerabilities, and receive help for their pain, loneliness, sadness, addiction, learning problem, disorganization, or whatever.

Whatever transformation you want to make in your life, you have the power, the strength, to admit you are weak in that area and get the help. It’s like taking a coin and flipping it over. One side is what you don’t want; flip it over and you’ll see what you do want.

What do you want?