Today’s Mission
Day 21
Running Through the Wall
It’s a little like wrestling a gorilla.
You don’t quit when you’re tired.
You quit when the gorilla is tired.
ROBERT STRAUSS
I (Nate) love running marathons. But, between you and me, I could do without miles seventeen to twenty-one. When the gun sounds at the beginning of a marathon, the streets are surging with life, with energy, with novelty. Buoyed by screaming crowds, blasting music and tens of thousands of people all running in the same direction, most runners find the first ten miles a breeze.
But about the time mile thirteen comes around, the half-marathoners have peeled off, reducing the number of runners by more than 75 percent, and the crowd has thinned to a sparse collection of friends and family. Only the most dedicated fans climb their way to those out-of-the-way parts of the route on the backside of the race. After mile fifteen, things start to get a little (okay, a lot) lonelier.
For me, mile seventeen always seems to be the toughest. I’ve still got more than nine miles to go. My body is tired, my legs feel heavy and sore, and I begin to question my sanity and whether I’ve got what it takes to put one foot in front of the other for almost two more grueling hours (yeah, I’m that fast). Once I’ve passed the twenty-one-mile mark, I know I can gut it out until the end, but miles seventeen through twenty-one are where I most want to quit.
Today, you may find yourself in just this slice of your 30-Day Change project. If you do, you may have found your mind is starting to play tricks on you. You think, I keep plugging away, and nothing is working, or There are so many urgent things to attend to, I can’t keep spending this amount of time on just one priority.
And you would be normal.
No one makes it to the finish line (in your case, to an entirely new culture with a full volunteer team in place) without passing through miles seventeen to twenty-one. During these days, don’t get caught in the whirlpool of too much thinking about why. Just put one foot in front of the other, put in the time, and in less than ten days you’ll see that finish line.
Today’s Mission
- With your master recruiting documents (your needs list and your ranked pool list) in front of you, check your email to see if anyone has responded to your invitation and reply to those emails immediately.
- For those who have said yes, make sure their names are written in black ink on your master list.
- For those who have said maybe, send an email suggesting a meeting time and place for you to talk further about what you’re looking for.
- Hold any scheduled meetings with potential volunteers.
- For those who have said no,
- Move their names to the bottom of the pool list, under the section called “No.”
- Beside each name, write what role each person has said no to.
- Remove their names from the needs list.
- Place new names in the blanks left by those who have said no.
- Send your standard invitation email to the people you have added to your master recruiting list.
- Send a follow-up message to any potential volunteer who hasn’t responded to your last message in three days or more.
- youth leader directory
- major event calendar
- youth directory
- child protection and screening forms and policies
- job descriptions