Note: Originally published on SuccessNet.org in the fall of 2005.
Our yacht was hauled from the blue waters of Lake Champlain last week and placed “on the hard” until next May. It’s always a bit sad.
“Attitude” will take a long winter’s nap sitting in her storage cradle. She looks so different than when she lies tethered in her slip—bigger, too. Her deck is over 10 feet off the ground and the top of her aluminum mast rises nearly 60 feet.
We’ve winterized her engine and water systems and will install a canvas cover to protect her gleaming decks from the sun and snow. She’ll get a new Teflon bottom in the spring after we strip away all the old antifouling paint—something that hasn’t been done since she was built. Her steering wheel will live in our bedroom—a daily reminder of our love of sailing—a touchstone of our prized vessel.
It would be easy to lament the end of the sailing season. Fall is beautiful in Vermont, but as the colorful leaves disappear, our thoughts turn to the cold wintry weather ahead.
But as one door closes another opens.
We’ll miss the warm and sunny times we spent aboard Attitude this summer with friends and family. We appreciate and cherish the memories of sailing on the sixth largest freshwater lake in the US. But we’ll also take this time to do repairs and make upgrades—something we might not do as much of if we had a year-round sailing season.
In our life and in our business, we must learn to deal with changes. Some are cyclical, like the changes of the seasons, and others are unpredictable. The successful person adapts to this change and uses it to benefit his or her objectives. Like an athlete using the off-season to train and prepare, we need to take advantage of down time, of unscheduled interruptions and seasonal changes.
We must constantly be asking ourselves what we CAN do with current circumstances instead of complaining or lamenting about what we CAN’T do.
For everything there is a season—your life and your business have a time for planting, for cultivating, for harvesting and for recovery.
How will YOU use the upcoming season? Will you be preparing, restoring, sowing or nurturing?
How will you be ending this year and preparing for the next? What is it that you most want to do in the few weeks remaining in this year? What can you improve, repair or upgrade?
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