Planning the New Year, Parenting Wrestlers

And another year begins. Grateful for the past year and hopeful about the next. Amy and I have been having some planning conversations. Trying to mutually agree on where we’re going next. Since we’ve been married, going on 12 years now, most of our planning has been geared towards the growth of the farm in one way or another: adding cows, adding chickens, adding pigs, adding freezers, adding cabins, adding an on-farm kitchen, and so on. This is the first season since we started down this road that we don’t have a big next project to pursue. Not that we’re out of ideas or opportunities. Maybe it’s that we’re running out of steam. 

There is strength in diversifying. I like the idea of not putting all our eggs in one basket. (Side note: a basket would be better to put all our eggs in than a coat pocket. I made a second pass though the nesting boxes the other day, putting a few late eggs into my coat pocket. Forgetting they were in there when I loaded up the wood stove, well, you can guess what happened to the eggs in my pocket…Ha) Nature is filled with diversity. We believe in modeling our farm to mimic nature. The more successfully we can diversify our farm to replicate nature, the more all life on the farm will thrive. The problem with continually diversifying our farm is that it continually divides our time. It often feels like the more we try to do, the worse we do at everything. Our farm focus for this year is not so much concerning growth as much as trying to do better at the things we’re already doing. Giving more attention to some things we’ve been neglecting. Honestly, this year’s planning conversations have been more focused on growing our kids rather than growing our farm. 

It’s important to plan. We’re not going to hit a target unless we aim at it. But just as important as planning is evaluating. How did we measure up to last year’s plans? Not very good. In many regards. Of the many resolutions we set last year, the only one we fulfilled was going on 10 dates in a year. With the noise of the house growing as the kids do, time for just the two of us has become increasingly important. Those dates were much needed and wouldn’t have happened had we not resolved to make them happen. 

On the other hand, concerning the rest of my resolutions from last year, I failed miserably. Why make resolutions that I won’t live up to? Why not? We make New Year’s Resolutions because we want to do better. Why not aim at doing better? Because we fail? I would rather try and fail than not try. I would rather aim and miss than not aim. Even if we miss by a long shot, aiming and missing gets us a little closer to the target that not aiming at it at all. The first question to answer is: What is it that we’re aiming at?

Being halfway through the youth wrestling season, wrestling has been on the forefront of mind lately. I loved competing as a wrestler. Competing and coaching are two different things. Parenting a wrestler and coaching a wrestler are two different things. On my way to take cows and pigs to the processor this week, I listened to “How to Succeed (And Fail) As A Wrestling Parent” by Donovan Panone who has been an elite wrestling coach for the past couple decades while understanding and balancing the roles between coaching and parenting. This was very insightful to me and somewhat altered my perspective on both coaching and parenting athletes. Here’s a few quotes: 

“Through this process, I’ve been around all types of parents, and I’ve seen the patterns of the successful ones. More importantly, I’m also the parent of a wrestler who started when he was four years old. I’ve seen all the highs and lows of the sport, not just through the eyes of a coach but also as a father. My son David wasn’t naturally gifted early on and had to work hard for his success. In his first three years of wrestling, he only won three matches and lost 59. He went on to lose 76 of his first 90 matches. Fast forward to today, he is a 3-time high school state champion, placed in several national tournaments, and was ranked nationally.”

“Step 3: Get beaten and learn to lose… No matter how quickly a wrestler picks up the sport, you cannot be successful in wrestling without getting beaten and pushing through adversity. Step 4: Get beaten some more.”

“A basic framework of the process… deliberate practice, consistent effort, challenging competition, evaluate, learn, and adapt.”

“Wrestling is a tough sport, and kids need to feel like they are making progress in order to enjoy it. I’ve learned that making incremental progress is what motivates kids to stick with the sport. It isn’t just about winning. It’s about seeing their hard work pay off and knowing that if they keep working, they will find higher levels of success. It’s this chase for success that’s more addicting than the winning itself.”

Have a good week.

Will