Sometimes, even if you are doing everything right in life, things will blow up on you and you will be faced with unimaginable difficulty.
Having lived through WWII as a child and the communist era in Poland as an adult, my late grandfather Stan saw a lot of things and heard a lot of stories.
One powerful story he told me has stuck with me to this day, and I lean on it when I'm faced with overwhelming situations... it always gets me back on course.
He once befriended a woman who survived the Gulag (the Gulag was Stalin's version of forced labour camps in the arctic north of the Soviet Union for political prisoners and "undesirables".)
Having been separated from her family as a political prisoner and sent to the work camps, she arrived crammed like a sardine with others in a train car to the most inhospitable conditions imaginable.
Freezing cold temperatures, hunger, illness, brutal living and working conditions, and the worst atrocities that one might imagine taking in this place.
Like everyone else, she was given a choice, to work or die.
The trouble was that many of those who chose to work died anyway due to the conditions.
She was put on a production line for assembling lumber piles onto trains bound for the capitol.
Each day her task was to collect, process, and assemble 12 massive crates of lumber.
If she finished her task, she would receive a loaf of bread.
This was an almost impossible task for healthy individuals.
Now imagine having to do it while freezing cold, starving, ill and weak.
Each day she tried, each day she failed.
Even though others around her were somehow getting the job done, to her the task seemed simply unsurmountable, she began to give up hope and decided to resign herself to her fate.
Then one day, she met a man on the line who saved her life.
During a moment of courage and compassion, when the guards weren't looking, he quickly motioned the frail woman to come over to his line.
"Not like that poor child, if you do it like that you're going to die here!", he told her.
He then brought her over to one of the completed lumber piles he had created on his line.
He lifted the top layers of lumber off this pile and had her look inside..
Inside she saw only branches and twigs.
"That's how you do it! That's how you survive!"
The man was creating what appeared like completed lumber piles, but the insides were just filler. He knew the guards weren't even inspecting the loads, they just cared that 12 of them were completed as those were the requirements from up top.
Suddenly, she had hope, and she had a plan.
Recounting the story to my grandfather, the woman said "Stan, before that day, I was resigned to die... but that day I came alive."
She started making the 12-crate payload done day by day, she started receiving bread.
With the bread she was able to get her strength back, then trade for other goods, upgrade her situation, and eventually live to return home, mother children, and live a full life.
A grim story, I know... but one with many lessons.
What this story reminds me of is the simple and powerful wisdom of "one bite at a time" and the leverage of focusing only on what is essential.
When you're overwhelmed, when the situation is dire when it feels like the world is melting down all around you...
...9 times out of 10, it's because you're putting insurmountable expectations on yourself(and others) and trying to do it ALL, all at once...
...and you're likely not even taking care of yourself in the first place.
I'm not saying don't have goals or aspirations or try to do impossible things...
...but what I'm saying is that you're likely setting the bar way higher than you need to to begin with and expecting way too much from yourself all at once.
Very often we think we have to get those twelve crates of lumber filled...
...overwhelmed, we end up doing nothing and fall into despair.
...and we forget it's just about that one loaf of bread, and that there is something simple and obvious right in front of you that will make the biggest difference in your life and others.
We forget that those arbitrary "twelve crates of lumber in freezing inhospitable conditions" are the insane demands we put on ourselves(and others), ideas completely founded in delusion imprisoning ourselves and our dreams.
For example, do you know how long I have tried to write a weekly newsletter consistently?
It's been a decade.
I have sat on this newsletter and my writing for ten years and chose not to write and publish weekly because in my mind I built "12 crates of lumber" around the whole idea.
Do you want to know what my excuse was?
I don't have a logo for it.
I don't have a name for it.
I don't know what to write about.
I don't have the perfect topics.
I don't know which day of the week to publish.
I would have to copy/paste the newsletter to my blog, and that's too much work.
I have to update my blog so I can do it, I need to find time for that.
My audience is not in touch with the topics I want to write about now, I would turn off too many people
Nobody cares about my message anyway.
I can go on.
I was trapped in the overwhelm of all the things I wanted it all to look like when it was perfect, and I did nothing.
Do you want to know what finally got me?
"Kacper, just shut up and write the first sentence of the next newsletter."
Those are my twigs and branches.
That's my loaf of bread.
Each week I write one sentence and it turns into gold, I ship it out, and each newsletter turns into more ideas for videos and content that helps people.
I've got enough material now to fill a book and have been writing for months.
* A special thank you to all those who have written in lately with words of gratitude and support for this newsletter, thank you!)
Another example has been with my sailing project "Sail the Stars", I started with the idea to take people sailing and bring their genius out of them through adventure.
That was 4 bloody years ago!
My "twelve crates" there were insane, even though I didn't see it at the time
I need a $1,500,000 boat to do it.
I need to raise the money all at once.
We can't do it in an ordinary boat, it has to be an expedition-ready arctic-ready beast.
We have to own the boat.
Four years went by as I fumbled with a vision because I saw where it would be 10 years ahead and wanted that vision to be right here and now... instead of just starting with the small bite.
In the end, it boiled down to the simple act of...
Rent a boat somewhere beautiful, bring people together, and just go.
The particular pattern I'm speaking to is not just the fact that we overcomplicate things.
We deny our success by making up ridiculous demands of ourselves and others for things that are more available to us than air.
It's like telling yourself you can't get up at 6 am and start your day because you don't have a Rolex to tell the time.
Because to simplify things would mean that you might actually succeed... and that's scary.
You don't need the Rolex, you don't need to write all 300 newsletters all at once, and you don't need the Arctic expedition boat...
...you just need to do the next simple thing that will enable you to feel the momentum of getting going and staying true to the vision.
And just like being taken from your home and shipped off to Siberia as a political prisoner in the middle of the night...
... Sometimes, even if you are doing everything right, life will be unfair, and you will face what seems like impossible expectations.
That's when it's always time to take things one bite at a time and focus on the loaf of bread, not the twelve crates.
Where are you imprisoning yourself in the idea that your vision, dream or situation is a twelve crate deal?
How could you lower the barrier of entry to get the line going?
What seemingly simple repetitive task could you do that would totally simplify that enormous laundry list in your head?
Thanks for reading,
If you enjoyed reading this and would love assistance to unshackle your mind, free your vision, and build an awesome life, book a call with me here.
All the best,
Kacper