Laying Down Track

The fight of your life

“Creative tension is the gap between vision and current reality.” Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline

Laying Track

In 1998 I was part of a revolution. *

Twenty of us, all women, sat around a ten-foot table ready to be told our tasks. It would be an academic struggle not a physical fight. Our goal was to bring Family & Consumer Sciences into the 21^st Century by creating academic content standards for the State of Pennsylvania.

Everything was pre-ordained. We had a vision of exactly what we wanted and how to get there.

Some scoffed and some stepped forward and laid down the track. We visualized a victorious celebration.

*Laying track assumes the engine is already being built

*Laying track assumes you know the destination

*Laying track assumes determination and guts

*Laying track assumes the train has left the station and you are providing the direction

*Laying track is a treacherous undertaking

Most of you do it every day:

            Raising children

            Teaching children in a tumultuous world

            Saving for the future

            Taking care of your bodies

Do you have a vision of a healthy you? Are you laying track? Ahead of the train? Moving in the right direction? Is there tension?

Tension exists between where I am currently and where I want to be. Peter Senge, in his seminal management book, The Fifth Discipline, says “The creativity lies in the paradox”—in the “creative tension” between where we are and where we want to be. We’re not where we want to be but every day we’re laying track. We know the destination. We can see it.

What Senge is saying is don’t get frustrated. Use this “creative tension” to forge a plan. It might not be a revolution but it will surely be the fight of your life.

Thank you for subscribing to and supporting Get Gutsy. Let me know in the COMMENTS how you’re laying track and please hit the HEART button, it means a lot.

Remember, there’s no expiration on dreams,

Trish

*In 1998, content standards in Family & Consumer Sciences officially became part of the statewide curriculum in PA.

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