Bridges and Moats

Moats. Now we kayak them. But they were built for one thing: keeping the threat out. (Ross Castle, Ireland, 2022)

Stationed in Germany, I was part of a running group called the Hash House Harriers. It’s an international social running club where a "hare" lays chalk trails through the countryside and the rest of us chase them down. There are silly traditions, songs, and no roadways allowed. Discovery was a key point.

In Germany, that meant forested hills, hidden trails, and around nearly every bend, a castle. My lieutenant friends and I used to scout them for unit dinners and holiday celebrations. There is something about standing next to a fortress that makes you understand what it was built for. The walls. The moat. The single bridge.

Keep the threat out. Let the right things in. Invest in the structure and let it do the work.

Rod and I later traveled through Europe and Asia and saw the same design repeated everywhere. Different countries, different centuries, same logic. It struck me as more than physical architecture.

What if you built your life the same way?

Not to keep people out. But to keep the distractors, detractors, and derailers at bay while you do the work that matters. To protect the things you have decided are worth protecting.

This is the foundation of sustainable performance. The long-term ability to stay on course without exhausting yourself, burning out, or losing sight of what you are doing it all for. Because the threat to your goals rarely looks like a dramatic crisis. It looks like slow drift. A compromise here, a skipped boundary there, a relationship that got less of you than it deserved. One day you look up and the castle is still standing, but you cannot find the bridge back in.

Setting your goal is actually the easy part. What are you working for? That is your castle. The harder part is knowing what you will and will not do to reach it. Most people skip that step, which is exactly how they end up somewhere they did not intend to be.

Here are the first three steps.

1. Write down everything between you and your goal. Everything.

This means the skills, tools, resources, and knowledge you still need. And it means your non-negotiables: your health, your relationships, your values and principles. The things that are not on the table. Get specific. A vague list produces a vague plan.

2. Divide the list into bridges and moats.

Bridges are what you need to build, develop, or earn on the way to your goal. Skills, education, finances, key relationships.

Moats are what you will not do. Your ethical lines. Sacrificing your family. Giving up sleep and exercise to grind a little harder. These are the boundaries you decide on before the pressure arrives, not during it. Because under pressure, boundaries you have not already committed to tend to disappear.

3. Reassess the goal.

Now that you can see the full picture, is it still worth it? Does your goal need adjusting given what you are and are not willing to do to reach it? Maybe you decide the travel and the long nights are worth it. Maybe you do not. The point is to go in with your eyes open, before the costs catch you off guard.

The last two steps are in a free five-day course I put together on sustainable performance. You can sign up to have it delivered to your inbox at the link below.

On On! (Hash language for “let’s go!”)

Build the life you are working for.~ Sarah

P.S. The full five-step framework is waiting for you: Sustainable Performance