Chop Wood, Carry Water
Viewing this quote through the lens as an endurance racing coach, Enlightenment can be thought of as synonymous with racing success- whatever that is for you. The acts of Chopping Wood and Carrying Water are analogous with the simple, but not necessarily easy, basics of the sport.
Chopping Wood and Carrying Water are those daily, necessary, executable, sometimes menial, tasks that can be completed every day no matter the weather, your mood, etc. Consistently and progressively repeating these actions over a long period are the building blocks of success. How you do anything is how you do everything. To do well at the big things in life, you have to do well with the complementary little things.
Some days you Chop and Carry more and some days you Chop and Carry less, but there are 2 non-negotiables: it is consistently repeated and always in manageable doses. Overnight successes are created by consistently Chopping and Carrying over a long period of time. On the days that feel good and the days that don’t. Motivation will not always be there, therefore discipline must be built. Willpower is required and willpower has nothing to do with genetics.
Like the United States Postal Service saying: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”
What does Chopping Wood and Carrying Water look like as an endurance athlete?
- Stress
- Rest
- Preparation
Stress + Rest + Preparation = Growth
I believe that the three variables in the growth equation are all directly related. As stress increases, rest should increase, with the preparation increasing as well to produce the maximum growth. A disparity between increasing and decreasing the variables will not result in maximal, if any, growth. For a lot of people, putting in the effort is not the issue preventing them from improving. Rather, it’s recognizing and embracing the link between the other variables, rest and preparation, in conjunction with stress. More on this equation can be found here.
To get great at those things in your life that are simple but not easy you have to begin with the end in mind. Beginning with the end mind, What do you want? To become? To do? Your future first begins as a narrative that your brain tells you. The more clarity you have with this end desired state, the better plan you can make to achieve this. The more clarity with the required steps, the more likely they will be achieved. You must know what you want to do or accomplish and WHY this is important to you. Clarity is key. The more clarity you have with your desired outcome and why this is meaningful to you, the more likely you are to succeed in reaching that state. The journey to being better than yesterday requires you to know and continually revisit your “why” of doing whatever is that you are doing. This “why” will be the fuel for you to execute the actions that your dream state demands. Your focus in the moment is connected to your end vision. The clearer your vision for the the future, the easier it is to focus on what is currently required of you.
Using the analogy of baking cookies, you can’t have the best cookies if you don’t use the best ingredients. To do well at the big things in life, you have to do well with the complementary little things. The whole is made up of numerous interconnected parts — and a better whole can be created by improving the individual parts.
A synonym for these ingredients is habits. To do what others can’t, you must consistently and repeatedly do what others don’t. If your daily habits are exceptional, you’ll become extra-ordinary. Consistently repeated, this purposeful extra-ordinary behavior creates the habit of excellence. Talent is a gift; greatness is a choice.
In simpler terms, (thousands of year ago) Aristotle said:
“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
And once you have accomplished your desired racing results, the key to continuing on this path of success is to keep Chopping and Carrying. Before success and after success, sticking with the same actions that brought it to you- Chopping and Carrying. The secret is the fact that there is no secret-just consistency.
“Excellence is mundane. Excellence is accomplished through the doing of actions, ordinary in themselves, performed consistently and carefully, habitualized, compounded together, added up over time.”
“What was the secret, they wanted to know; in a thousand different ways they wanted to know The Secret. And not one of them was prepared, truly prepared to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most unprofound and sometimes heart-rending process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottoms of his training shoes. The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials.”
John L. Parker, Once A Runner
