The Same Old Same Old

We have just finished another storytelling festival in St. Marys. In many ways you could consider it a success. We had the strongest roster of tellers ever. Many aspects of the event were beyond our expectations.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t the best and our attendance did not go up.

Tomorrow we will be doing a post-mortem. We will be deciding where we need to improve. Many suggestions will be given.

The easiest thing to do would be to continue on, doing the same things we are doing now, just trying to do them even better. We won’t probably be losing money and the tellers and all those who attend tell us we are doing a great job.

If our objective is to have more people come each year, then we are not succeeding. If we do the same as we did last year, the results will be pretty much the same. If you put the same amount of sunshine and water on seeds each year, the yield of your crop won’t be much greater.

Therein lies the problem. We often put up with mediocrity because it feels comfortable instead of taking a chance and flying with the eagles. We tend to look at all of the negative aspects instead of the positive. We worry about falling instead of thinking about flying. The problem is that if you are staying the same and not improving, you are actually moving backwards.

For example, I have thought that it might be better have the festival at the end of June instead of September. I know that many will come up with reasons why we shouldn’t switch the date. My feeling is that if we never try, we will never know. I can think of a few reasons why June will be better, longer, hotter days being one of them.

Most of us are the same way. We settle into our lifestyle, complete with all of its habits, never wanting to change. We are comfortable the way we are, thank you.

When I get like this, I think of Tiger Woods. He was at the top of his game, winning a lot of tournaments. He was the number one golfer in the world. How did he feel about that? He got a coach to change his swing. His goal isn’t to be the number one golfer of a certain year. He wants to be the best golfer ever. He knows that he probably won’t do it if he does the same things every other golfer has done.

Martina Navratilova was the same way in tennis. She was a very good tennis player. That wasn’t her goal. She wanted to dominate the game. She decided to do something other players hadn’t done much of to that point. She worked on her strength and conditioning. Until then, tennis players had become better by merely playing more tennis. She stepped outside of the “same old” and got more than the “same old” results.

So, what do you want out of life? Are you content living the way you are? If so, I am happy for you. However, if you want more, realize that you are going to have to change and that will probably mean going out of your comfort zone and doing things in ways you have never done them before. You are going to have to analyse what you really want in life, then be prepared to make the positive changes you need in order to meet them.