near misses and near wins

This past Friday I was in a car accident. I am physically ok, the car is not, and my soul and heart are shaky.

I’m not sharing this for empathy. I’ve got a great community supporting me. I’m sharing because while watching the tow truck crew winch my car off the concrete barrier I was thinking:

Near miss.

All of the near misses in our lives. Those things where one slight difference in timing, environment and positioning would have been the difference between being here and not.

Sometimes we call it luck. I definitely feel lucky today. Sometimes it’s circumstance or privilege. Sometimes we will never know why it was us and not them, them and not us.

Then I got thinking, which leads me to the nugget of this note to you today, about near wins. All those times we almost won. Victory, success, accomplishment… insert your definition.

The second place. The next in line. The turnaround 100 meters from the summit.

We tend to celebrate the wins (though I can say after all these years of coaching, most of us need to get better at this!). We tend to brush off the near wins. Worse, we beat ourselves up for them.

I was close. Oh well, at least I made it here… I should have tried harder/got up sooner/pushed myself more… insert self-punching here.

Today as I sit in gratitude of being here, my coaching practice to you — to us — celebrate the near wins. They matter a whole lot.

May you take a moment today to be thankful and share that thanks with someone you love.