Freeze! The Key to Enjoying Success
Freeze! The Key to Enjoying Success
Freeze, you are it! My favorite game as a kid was freeze tag. Even today I love playing with my kids when they let me. It is such a simple game and concept; you get tagged you are frozen. While you are frozen you look around at everyone else still not frozen hoping they tag you to unfreeze yourself and continue playing.
Now, why do I think this game is relevant at all for today’s topic? So glad you asked. You see when was the last time you “froze” yourself? Meaning, when was the last time you took a step back and looked at your life? Have you truly appreciated all you’ve accomplished up to this point? Is it more than you ever imagined and yet you still yearn for more?
I’ve found that we, as humans, do a great freaking job of setting our sights on something and conquering it. I’ve also found that we do a terrible job of freezing in the moment to appreciate what we’ve accomplished. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve spoken to a client or friend and said to them, “Can you believe this is where you are in life right now?” Almost 100% of the time their answer is the same. They say something along the lines of you’re telling me, I grew up with nothing and if you told me then I’d be where I am today, I would have been shocked.
Heck, I even look at my own life. I remember getting a nice raise probably ten years ago at Diversified. I came home and was so ecstatic as I was telling my wife we’ve “made it.” She was able to scale back work and live her ideal life. That said if you asked me at that time to sign in blood this is what the rest of my career would look like and no more advancement, I likely would have given you 10 gallons of blood to make sure there were no mistakes. The funny thing is that if you asked me to go back now there is no way I could conceive accepting that offer. As a matter of fact, I still want to grow and expand my career.
Now the issue that I, and many of my clients/friends, deal with isn’t the fact that we want to further succeed. I think the issue is we get blinded by success or advancement. We have a one-track mind on moving to the next thing that we don’t enjoy the journey, as we are too focused on the next destination. This is where 6-year-old Andrew can give some wisdom, and that is of the age-old game freeze tag.
Here is the concept for you, simply freeze. Take a moment to look around and put things in perspective. Do you appreciate what YOU have accomplished? Do you recognize all the sacrifices you and your family have made to get to where you are today? Have you fully appreciated those that help you get to where you are today? Stay frozen for a second here. Take a zoomed-out shot of it all. Is your family freaking amazing like mine? Do you have an incredible group of friends that you can lean on? These are the types of questions I find very valuable in staying grounded and appreciative.
All I know is that if you are nodding your head as you read that last paragraph, then stay frozen for a moment. Let it all sink in and really appreciate where you are this very day and all you’ve accomplished. You may not be done, and that is ok. However, if you can’t celebrate at every chance you get, then truly what are you doing it for? Ok, you can unfreeze now.
What if you are unhappy with where you are when you play this game of freeze? Well, I still encourage you to play it and do two things. One, appreciate all that is great in your life, and two figure out what you need to change or address to realize life’s successes.
I thought this would be a good topic, as I work with a lot of impressive people who have accomplished so stinking much. That said I find the one common theme I keep running into is they aren’t truly appreciating how impressive these successes are.
Now go back to your busy lives, but please don’t forget to play a little game along the way. My experience has been it will be more rewarding and fun if you do so. Thanks for reading and wishing you all to stay wealthy, healthy, and happy.