I loved family trips when I was a kid.
Maybe all kids love this, I don’t know.
These trips always happened in the summer, and they weren’t extravagant. We’d pile in the car for a few days in DC or an amusement park weekend. Once, when I was 10, we flew to Orlando for what might have been the greatest week of my young life.
As much as I loved these trips, there was something I loved even more. The anticipation of these trips.
Perhaps this is common. Perhaps I was a weird kid. But for me the lead up was the excitement. Breaking out the paper maps from the glove compartment to plan the route. Looking at the brochures we got from the travel agency. Going to Alexanders to get outfits that were purchased months before but were not to be worn prior to the trip.
I know, I know. Those of you under forty have no idea what a paper map, travel agent and Alexanders even are. But, trust me, this was all part of it back then.
I so looked forward to these trips that I woke up the morning of with an even mixture of excitement and melancholy. We were finally going! But the build up was behind me.
Back then, half the fun was in the waiting. Maybe that’s something we lose as adults.
Again, I’m not sure how many kids feel like this but it certainly doesn’t seem like adults do. And maybe that is because we are taught not to.
As business owners, founders or employees we are always told to have a vision of the future.
Our personal financial plans are optimized for retirement more than they are for the lives we currently desire to live.
And when it comes to fitness it is typically all about future goals. How you can get to your target body weight or how many training cycles before you can bench three plates.
The eyes are always on the horizon.
And that is good, to an extent. It’s good to think about where you want your business and career to go. It’s smart to plan for your financial future. It’s motivating to have training goals and to set up the structure to work towards them.
I’m a huge believer in delayed gratification and taking the long view.
But if we only look out in the distance we miss something very important. We neglect the ground under our feet.
Understanding how to make the most out of this month or this week or even this day is undervalued. And, truthfully, it’s more important than planning for the future outcomes.
This isn’t so much about “being present” or having an appreciation for your current life (although those things are valuable). This is about putting the effort into the thing right in front of you - this month's sales numbers, this week’s budget, today’s strength workout - because, quite honestly, these are things that are much more in your control.
They are also the things that are going to lead to and allow you to build to that long term vision you have for yourself.
No one knows what the future will hold. Just during my time in the fitness industry we’ve gone through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, a long bull run in the stock market, a global pandemic and whatever the hell is happening right now.
And maybe The Big Short guys or someone working on AI saw all this coming, but the rest of us probably didn’t.
And there’s a good chance that if you worked for Lehman Brothers in 2007, your vision of your future self probably didn’t work out exactly how you thought it might.
So, yes. Plan and plot and strategize.
But don’t forget to look down at the road and see where you are going to plant your foot next.
Because the future isn’t an imagined finish line. It’s just a trail of well-placed steps.