In rowing, each stroke is a new opportunity, a new chance to get it right. There is no time or opportunity to stop and fix or redo a previous stroke, it is imperative that you start fresh with each new stroke. When you stop rowing the whole boat stops, whether by yourself or in a crew. You are part of what keeps the boat moving, and the only way to keep moving forward is to focus on what’s next, not on what’s behind.
But you cannot jump too far ahead, only to the next stroke. Each one brings you closer to the finish, but it is imperative that you remain in the moment focused on what is happening in that moment.
In life, where there is so much on that it all feels overwhelming, it can be easy to get stuck on what you have missed, or the longer term of what you have ahead of you, and it can feel like so much is happening in the moment that you get stuck. You stop moving because you don’t know where to start. Do I deal with dinner, or bills, that work project or my kids’ school email, or that thing I need to finish or…
What rowing has taught me is that in order to deal with life when it feels overwhelming, I need to be present in the moment, attentive to what is happening right now and work on that little piece of what I need to accomplish. Is it 6pm and I’m at home? Then I need to focus on dinner? Am I at the office? Then I need to focus on work. Did I set time aside on the weekend for that renovation project, then let’s knock that out. Not worrying about all the things I’m missing on or not doing while doing what I’m actually doing in that moment, but present and focused on what is happening now.
This is not easy. The number of times I have been in a boat and I have missed a stroke, and then I’ve dwelt on what I did wrong so much so that I continued to mess up the strokes in the next moment – because I wasn’t focused on what was happening in that moment. Or, I might have been so stressed about how far we still had to go, that I missed a stroke because I wasn’t paying attention.
Rowing has taught me that you must be in the moment, focus on what you can control, and keep moving forward one stroke at a time. Life is not so overwhelming when you take things one step, one day, one task at a time… and before you know it, you are out of the mess and at your destination.
