We have a treat for you today. A guest post. A really good one. Of course, we love anyone who includes Pages and Paws puns in their post. Bonus points for Kimber shout-outs.  We’re just funny that way. Time for Grit by Rick Czaplewski has plenty of both. 

Now, we get a lot of guest posts that are boilerplate. About as fresh as a carton of milk that’s been left out. For a week. As inspiring as an overcooked cabbage. But Time for Grit is fresh. Original. One of a kind. Kimber: Like me! Arf!

In fact, when we received this guest post from author Rick regarding what battling cancer has taught him, we thought it was like, Totally PAWsome. Lots of wag-worthy stuff here to inspire and motivate. You’ll think so, too. So let’s jump in, shall we?

Time for Grit

By Rick Czaplewski

In the summer of 1997, I celebrated my one-year cancerversary, a full 365 days in remission from Hodgkin’s Disease. My body bounced back and I took up cycling.  I enjoyed renewed health as a 2-year relationship with my significant other devolved into fighting and toxicity. At age 22, neither she nor I owned the adult skills for communication, both of us too young and too at the precipice of adulthood to sustain the relationship. 

But we tried. We tried hard and I know what you’re thinking, “The harder you try, the more you cry,” and doggone it (Pages and Paws pun intended) you’re right. As I hung onto that relationship and struggled to make it work, my father observed from a distance at the pain and difficulty it caused, moreso having just completed 8 months of chemo.

A Coffee Can?

He wrote me a letter with simple advice that stuck. His question to me, “Are you bailing out the Titanic with a coffee can?”

For the better, we ended it shortly after that letter. 

Let’s park this question until later, dear blog reader. 

Facing cancer; beating cancer rewired me. Writing Better Dirty Than Done rototilled those memories, feelings, and the pain. Writing Better Dirty Than Done reminded me of how far I’ve come, now 27 years since receiving the news of remission (NED) and the things I needed to do to process the experience shared in those pages. 

So, dear blog reader, you ask:

“Tell me, in fewer than 50 words, what are the key takeaways from your experience surviving cancer?” 

So glad you asked, I only need three … 

Time Always Wins

The advice I give my son, Lance: plan your life according to when you have energy and fully developed faculties. As a young man in his 20’s, his physical faculties and energy level may peak. But experience and wisdom await him as he attempts new things and learns. 

He has the physical ability to train for and complete a marathon, but lacks the knowledge and experience today to deliver a keynote speech at a convention in his profession. Both running a marathon and delivering a keynote speech are significant lifetime milestones, but he reasonably could only run the marathon today. 

If we fast-forward 30 years, as an expert in his field, conferences may seek him to speak all over the country, but could he even run a 5k? Time always wins and eventually, his athletic skills will decline 30 years from now. Now map more skills into this timeline. Where are you and your skills on this continuum?

What Cancer Taught Me

So what did cancer teach me, both as an athlete who competed in three state tournaments and who at the worst point could not walk up one flight of stairs? Time wins. Get over it. Use your strongest faculties now. That means pursue that career, chase that achievement, repair that relationship, and make that hard phone call. Time will close doors on all of them. Take action and get after it.

Dog Days

Don’t let your best days turn into “dog days” (another pun for Kimber). 

The only way to beat time is to take action while you can. 

Let’s use an example, running a marathon. If you decide to chase this goal, follow these steps:

1. Research, plan, read, and familiarize yourself with the training and nutrition needed. Anyone can research and plan a training regimen with a few mouse clicks. 
2. Make a schedule – use your learnings from #1 and break down training into a day-by-day plan and check off the days as you complete them. 
3. Start and stick to the schedule. Easier said than done. If you run into rough roads reframe as follows:

1. Why am I doing this? Time … now is the time. Remember this.
2. A mistake threw me off course, now what? Continue to train, but adjust if needed. Time for grit. You have a plan and the motivation, stick to the plan. Use these grit ideas.

• Lost motivation? Picture yourself at the completion of the marathon holding a medal.
• Bored? Spice up your training playlist with new songs. Take a new route. Run with a friend or group
• Injured? Change your shoes and get ones that are fitted to your gait. Change your gait. See a PT. Stretch better.
• Have doubt? Trust the process. Take it one day at a time. Use a let’s see mindset, keep training and “let’s see” how things look on race day. Remind yourself that your achieved milestone will permanently erase all self-doubt of being able to do it. Positive self-talk. Remind yourself that others have done it and so can you. Run with your dog (another Kimber shoutout).
• Lacking support? Communicate your need/desire to bag this milestone. Visualize your own success. Everything is temporary, even the suffering during training.

• Examine your training and preparation from all angles and make any changes to help your performance.
• Need the ultimate motivator to stay on track? If you really want to do it, starting over from nothing will be exponentially more difficult than adjusting and hanging in there mid-cycle.

• Execute your race day plan.  After all the training miles and knowledge and nutrition experiments, follow your plan and don’t do anything new and untested on race day.
• Enjoy the moment for which you have worked so hard.

Use your own goals in that example’s framework. Research, plan, execute, adjust, finish. 

The Confluence

The confluence of time, opportunities, and grit sits in point three. If you have chosen, researched, and planned a big goal, I challenge you to start your plan and show yourself your own grit. Plan to see setbacks. Grit does not mean blindly accepting pain and suffering; rather, it means finding ways around or solutions to those setbacks. 

Instead of folding, give it an extra day or week. Take a rest or work an extra day. Ask for help. Revisit the plan. Budget for uncontrollable factors in your schedule. Tell yourself “I won’t go down this easy.” Remember why you started in the first place. Learn, pivot, shake it off, reattempt. Grit. Some opportunities only come around once, get after them; throw everything you have at them, the proverbial kitchen sink if you’ll permit.

Aim Large

Cancer has taught me to aim for large, sometimes outrageous goals. Time provides the motivation to start. Grit serves the energy to continue. The coffee can serves as the indicator to redirect.  My book tells the story; proof is in the story.   

Let’s finally get back to bailing out the Titanic with a coffee can (or Kimber’s water dish).  In some cases the number of setbacks is too great or maybe an opponent too skilled.  If you have made several reattempts and find yourself unable to continue, you may be holding the coffee can. There is no shame here. Pursuing something to your full extent and failing constitutes success. If you can look at yourself and know you gave it everything, but things were not meant to work out, you can rest knowing you gave it your best shot rather than lament not trying; there’s a huge difference here. Plus, you can learn and reattempt with greater experience later.

More often than not, you will succeed if you hang in there.  I’ve spent the last 27 years doing just that.        

Good luck, dear blog reader, may you too be Better Dirty Than Done for your attempts.  

***

Rick is the author of Better Dirty Than Done. Click here for our review.

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