A lesson from an old car!

I remember as a kid, back in the day, we always would have used cars. And, they almost always had some type of mechanical issue.

One such memory is of a car that my mom had, and she would ask me to go start the car to warm it up in the mornings while she got ready for work.

While that sounds easy enough, here was the trick. For the first few minutes of starting the car, for it to stay on you would have to keep pumping the gas pedal.

I remember at first, I got faked out. I would turn it on, think it was good, take my foot off the pedal and the thing would cut off! And it wouldn’t just cut off instantly either. It would do this slow losing of energy and just cut off!

I quickly learned a trick to keep it on, giving it enough gas consistently, until I could with confidence let my foot up and go inside.

I was recently thinking about that childhood experience and thinking about how similar that is to reaching goals. Sometimes, you start with a goal, things seem to go well, and then you let off the gas a bit. The thing you are reaching for may not immediately fall apart, but after a while, it may slowly fade and die.

Now, much like that old car, the key is finding the balance. See, with that car, if I just sat my foot on the pedal, at full steam, then you ran the risk of what they called “flooding the engine”. So, you had to find the right intensity to push down that pedal, and know when it was time to let up.

Your goals are the same.

If you put all your energy into one goal, full throttle, you run the risk of wiping yourself out, and not having room for anything else. But if you learn that perfect combination of pushing toward your goals and then letting up a bit to focus on other things and reset, you will have success.

Fortunately, I don’t think cars these days, have those same type of issues, but I for one am happy to have learned some valuable life lessons, from an old car!