Your Achilles Heel

Today we have a guest blog from Dan Weedin:

Last summer, I suffered an injury to my Achilles heel. I’m 49 years old, and for my fellow mid-lifers, it’s a very common malady. After visiting my doctor, I learned that what I actually was suffering from was a condition called Achilles “tendonosis.” The difference between tendonosis and tendonitis is that “isis” is acute, and “osis” means chronic.  Basically, this was an ailment that I would have to be dealing with forever. The good news was that there were some exercises and stretches that I could do that would reduce the inflammation and relieve the pain.

After assiduously following my regimen, the symptoms went away. This year, they popped back up. I had been extending myself with exercise and was beginning to feel a little discomfort. Then I walked the hill from the ferry terminal up to the Washington Athletic Club. Wow! I felt like an old man (and probably looked like one, too). I can blame it all I want on walking hills and overuse, yet the problem was me. I felt better, so I stopped doing what improved it. My Achilles Heel roared back like a lion.

When you have Achilles pain, you discover that it greatly affects your normal walking. I realized that this small part of my otherwise healthy and able body was causing chaos. It was slowing my progress, forcing me to divert to different routes, causing pain, and generally being a nuisance and distraction.

What is your Achilles heel in your business or personal life? My guess is that each of us has blights that keep us from maximizing our talents and value. Something that distracts us, wastes time, causes pain, or just simply creates chaos. This Achilles heel is keeping you from reaching your potential. AND, if you suffer from the chronic “osis,” you’re allowing it to drag on and on, with the danger that you will never fix it and could “rupture” your dreams and passions.

We are all guilty at times of fixing our symptoms and then relaxing when we feel better. Just like the pain in my heel. Yours will also come back to bite you hard if you stop working at it.

The moral of the story is this…Fix it. Fix whatever allegorical Achilles heel you’ve been carrying around before it becomes chronic, or worse, ruptures. The sooner you identify it and then eliminate it, the sooner you will be unleashed from its burden. 

Now, get “walking!”

DAN WEEDIN

Dan Weedin helps turn his clients business risk into rewards. He is able to take the abstract concepts of risk and crisis management to help business owners prepare and respond more effectively and with less time and cost to crisis. Since he doesn’t work for an insurance company or agency, he is able to act as an unbiased advocate for his clients. You can lear ore about Dan and how he can help your business on his web site at www.DanWeedin.com.