Reflecting on life lessons learned an sometimes be a less than cheerful trip down memory lane, but this one is 
actually quite funny. The joke is on me, but fortunately for you I’m not afraid to laugh at myself. So here we go.
If you live in a cold climate, you know very well the pain of shoveling snow from your driveway so that you can drive out of the garage. Well, I didn’t quite understand this concept when I moved to Minneapolis, MN from Memphis, TN.
In Memphis, the entire city would shut down if there was one inch of snow; and that was just about the most I’d seen at once. Please take this into consideration before calling me braindead as I share my crazy experience with you.
Life Lessons Learned, Minnesota Winter Style
It was my first Minnesota winter and there was more snow on the ground than I’d ever seen in my life. Everyone was scraping and shoveling and acting like little snow worker bees.
Being a little naïve and a lot impatient; I decided that standing out in the cold with a shovel was a waste of time. My thought process went a little like this, “It’s just snow—crystallized water—so why in hell would it be any match for a 2 ton car. I don’t have time for this shit. Maybe this is normal to these Midwesterners, but I’ll show them how a Southern girl gets things done. I can just drive right over this stuff and move on with my day. No big deal.”
Braindead? No. Blonde moment? No. Completely out of my freaking mind? Maybe. I put the car in reverse and pressed on the accelerator. WTH…The tires spun, but I went nowhere. So, I pressed that accelerator more and more. Lots of smoke, spinning tires, distressed noises from the car—but I was still there. Being the stubborn Capricorn that I am, I kept trying, achieving nothing except to royally piss myself off and delay the time it would take to get where I needed to go.
Needless to say, the snow won this battle. I finally gave up and realized that, if I wanted to get anywhere, I needed to make the snow shovel my new best friend. Bummer!
Unfortunately, this hopeless scenario is reminiscent of the way we as people often live our lives. We want to reach our potential—to live a better life—but we want to do so without purging all the crap that’s standing in our way.
Negative expectations, an attitude of defeat, low sense of self worth, limiting beliefs and fear are all blocks that can make it nearly impossible to reach your destination. For some, these blocks are relatively small but for many others they are huge snow covered mounds that keep you stuck in neutral when you’re most desperate to move forward. In either case, progress is possible.
In order to turn my plans for the day into reality, I had to step out of the car and shovel the shit out of that snow. I wanted to just act as if it wasn’t there—to disregard it and run it over—but that was not a workable solution.
Sure, there may be times when you can navigate your way through a rocky road along your path. But there will also be times when you run into a real road block. Running into it while acting as if it isn’t there won’t get you very far. At times like these, you have to get a little dirty, cold and tired if you want to change your life. You have to realize that what you’ve been doing isn’t working and that continuing to do the same thing will simply keep you wherever you are.
Every single one of us has amazing potential, but reaching that potential won’t always happen just because we decide that we want it to. If you want to turn your life around in some way, yet you’re not getting very far; take a closer look at what you’re allowing to stay the same. What are you trying to ignore? Whatever it is, just know that you have what it takes to change it. So, break out the tools and resources available to you and shovel your heart out until you can, once again, move in the direction of your dreams.
It’s comment time…
Minnesota winter clearly taught me a big life lesson. Can you think of any life lessons learned through seemingly unimportant, possibly humorous, happenings in your life? What do you think it takes to really change your life?
Nea is a Transformational Life Coach whose mission is to help you love your life.
If you desire the “good life” and you want to know how Nea can help you attain it, contact her now.
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Happiness.
Do you feel the boundless freedom and the power of the present moment? The freedom to live with both the motivating excitement of a new beginning and the enthusiastic anticipation of completion. Not the power to become—but to simply be. Not the power to remember—but to create anew. That is the power of now.
