In another one of my articles entitled Personal (and Professional) Success Tip: Do Not Do What Mr. Will And The Pizza Man Did, I relate the true story of a business owner who, having sold his business after 40 years of working in it like a slave, died within four days of finalizing the sale and never got around to doing many of the things he really wanted to do in life.
Then I asked the reader these question: What is YOUR biggest wish, YOUR lifelong dream ... and what’s keeping you from going after it? Are you waiting for “everything in your life to be right?” Waiting to have “all your ducks in a row?”
Unfortunately, many people ARE waiting for “everything in their life to be right”. It’ll never happen. You’re never going to “have it all together.” That’s like trying to eat once and for all.
My best advice is this: DON’T WAIT! Or one day you might regret it … like Alexa Whitehorse, a native girl from Northern British Columbia, Canada. I first met her when she was 12. It was about 10 o’clock on a frigid February night when I pulled into her village. As I drove to a friend’s cabin, I noticed a young girl figure-skating in the “hockey” rink. But it was way too cold for the boys to be out playing. So the rink was empty. Except for Alexa…
She was very good at it. And she loved it. Everybody was urging her to continue and become a professional skater. She skated until she was 16, winning local competitions, regional ones, and even a Northern BC championship. But then she slowed down, and eventually stopped. She let go of her dream. She told a friend she was waiting for “everything in her life to be right” before pursuing her dream again. After graduation, she went to work at a local store as a clerk.
On January 4, 1993, a car accident on the road near her village left her paralyzed from the waist down. Twenty years old, a beautiful, vibrant young woman, in a wheelchair. It brought tears to my eyes when I first saw her again.
I talked to her a few months ago. Now 35, she’s adapted to her new life. But she told me she often dreams of a genie coming to her in the middle of the night to offer her one wish. “I’d give anything for one more chance to lace up my skates – yes, those that pinched my toes when I put on extra socks. I’d give anything for one more night out on the rink, all to myself, with the numbing wind, the bumpy ice, the scratchy PA system playing the song I used to skate my choreography to, ‘Someday my prince will come’ ... I’d give everything for that privilege, even the rest of my life... including the ‘Prince Charming’ scenario ...” Alexa Whitehorse’s biggest dream is to be able to skate again one day …
So I’m asking you now: What is YOUR biggest wish, YOUR lifelong dream ... and what’s keeping you from going after it? Are you waiting for “everything in your life to be right?” Waiting to have “all your ducks in a row?” Let me repeat this: It’ll never happen. You’re never going to “have it all together.”
Follow Robert J. Ringer’s advice; “Action today! Develop the habit of living in the present. The best day really is today, so get started now, no matter what your problems are and no matter how long you’ve already procrastinated.”
Here’s the best recipe I know for getting rid of procrastination. It’s two words: DOn’t waIT!
Do it. Every single day. Whatever your big 5-year, 3-year, 1-year goal is that will change the rest of your life… do something about it E-V-E-R-Y S-I-N-G-L-E D-A-Y. Even if it’s just a little thing, like making a phone call, reading an article, subscribing to a newsletter. At least ONE thing. Every day.
What helps me – and Laurel, my wife and business partner – is we have a special section on our TO-DO list that says ‘MUST’. The task in there is either written in a different color or highlighted so it stands out from the other ten, twenty items on the list. The dictionary defines ‘must’ as: be obliged to, be certain to, ought to. For us, M-U-S-T is an acronym that defines that to-do task in relation to reaching our BIG GOAL: Mandatory, Urgent, Smart, Transformational. We take our MUST-DO task very seriously, as if our ‘new’ life depended on it – it does!
On January 1st 2008, we set a very BIG GOAL for us to achieve by December 31-2008. It will change our life. So every day, we make sure there’s at least one task under MUST. Sometimes there are three, sometimes five. But at least one. Every day. And we don’t go to bed, or don’t sit down for dinner until it’s DONE.
Does it work 100% of the time? No. But close. So far this year, we have crossed our MUST-DO task off our daily list 97.4 % of the time. Hey, we’re only human. But we’re on schedule and on target to reach our goal BEFORE the end of the year. And we owe it mostly to our daily obsession with crossing off our MUST-DO item. Try it. It works.
So my friends, to use the words of Nike®’s marketing people, whatever it is that will make your life what it was intended to be, the reason for which you showed up on this planet, go ahead, just do it! It’s a
M-U-S-T!
I wish you ALL the personal and professional success you desire and deserve. (Just remember that…What you “desire” is a function of your ambition, what you “deserve” is a function of your ACTIONS…Are the two aligned?)
BE the very best you can be,
DO all you can possibly do,
GET everything you want to have,
GIVE as much of it as you can give.
Daniel G. St-Jean
Aka The Sparkplug of Personal Development
Author of 7 Simple Keys To Spark Change In Your Life Now!
Co-author of 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life – volume 2
Daniel G. St-Jean’s mission is to instruct and ignite the people who are just thinking about making significant changes in their life, and to support and encourage those who are in the midst of making such changes so they get to live the life they really want to live. Visit his web site at http://www.SparkChangeInYourLife.com, read his Blog at http://www.aBlogAboutMakingLifeChanges.com and subscribe to his eSparks at http://www.SparkChangeInYourLife.com/e-sparks.