Lessons on achieving goals from rehabbing a neglected pool
One of the features of the farm we bought was an inground pool.
At the time of purchase, we had clarity on much of the work required to bring the house back to life, but the pool was a mystery. The sellers said, “we were about ready to fill it with concrete, good luck to you.” That summed up our initial reaction when we pulled the cover off for the first time; maybe they should have filled it in.
How much time, effort, and money would be required to bring this pool that had been completely neglected back to life. Instead of giving up, we began a journey to answer the question, what would restoring a pool that hadn’t been used, treated, or cared for in three years require of us?
It started with us blindly removing five wheel barrels of mucky leaves from a bottom we couldn’t see. It included finding four frogs, three pairs of goggles, two skeletons, and a possum who drowned (the opossum at least occurred while the restoring was underway, so it was easy.
Our efforts continued for eight weeks. This photo is 6 weeks into the process.
So What
Much like our pool situation, you will encounter challenges in life where the road to success will not be clear. The goal may be crystal clear, but the process to achieve the goal and the challenges on the journey are as murky as three-year-old untreated pool water.
In those instances, here are some things to consider based on our experience with the pool.
Get help from experts. I could have continuously guessed what to do but who knows how much MORE time and money that would have cost. So I swallowed some pride and admitted I needed help. The expert helped a ton, and I learned a lot. Even that some of what was on the internet was wrong. The expertise helped move progress along more quickly and efficiently.
Be consistent with your efforts. No matter how hard we would have worked on any single day or how many helpers we would have deployed, it wouldn’t have made the work take less time. Sometimes progress just takes time. You need to put in the consistent work to make progress, but the work is done when it gets done. (This is a great lesson for software development leaders to embrace). But keep up the work. Hard consistent work is like a flywheel. Progress starts slow but increases in effectiveness over time.
Don’t get (too) discouraged by slow progress. There were times when it seemed like nothing was working. Lots of labor hours with no visible progress. Lots of money was literally dumped down the drain in the form of chemicals but it didn’t look different. It was discouraging, but we reminded ourselves of the goal and kept pushing forward. Sometimes progress isn’t visually noticeable, but it’s still happening. Don’t quit; keep pushing forward.
The rest of the story
My goal was to open the pool on Memorial Day weekend. Success was achieved.
In total, nursing the pool back to health cost us eight weeks of daily work, thousands of dollars, 20 trips to the pool store for guidance/materials, a rented filter, and some blood/sweat/tears.
But we got there. And it was worth it.
A final lesson. We achieved the goal, but with a pool the work never ends. We must continue the consistent effort for the success to be sustained. This lesson can be applied to a lot of your life. Often the goal isn’t just to achieve the goal; it is to sustain the success that comes with achieving the goal. This requires consistent work even after the goal is achieved. Don’t stop moving forward. Keep your momentum going.