In a conversation with a colleague recently I found
myself giving advice to someone I have known for almost 10 years. This person is
almost 20 years my senior and he has not been an active participant in his own
life. When a person participates in
their life they believe and exude a level of control over it.
They Do Not
Believe That Life just Happens to Them
They Do Not
Make Excuses for their Actions
They Do Not
Expect Things to be Given to Them
Active
Participants in Their Lives
They DO Work
Hard to Accomplish their Goals
They DO Get
Results
They DO Achieve
Wealth
They DO Take
Responsibility for their Actions
As human beings we can give ourselves every excuse in the
book. We tell ourselves there is a reason
WHY we haven’t achieved our GOALS! We make this lie so convincing it becomes the
truth. We start to truly believe the LIE
and we STOP believing in OURSELVES. My friend’s excuse of choice is that he has
been in progress of getting things done.
This progression seems to be never ending and it always comes with a
reason why things didn’t work out as he had planned. He has been in “progress” these last few years
and “watering the seeds” of his future.
These seeds will sprout roots he claims, but they never do. Years
later, he is still in the same position touting the same rhetoric.
There is nothing wrong with getting a big pay off after
you have put blood, sweat and tears into a project. The ROI (Return On Investment) is what makes all the work really
worth it! Unfortunately this is not one
of those feel good stories where everything works out in the end.
I am not sure if I was feeling particularly brutal or
blunt but I proceeded to let my friend know that I felt he was on the wrong path.
I went on tell him that sometimes when we focus on completing too many goals we
end up not completing none at all. Sometimes the best plans can be the simplest
ones. The plans that require putting one
foot in front of the other and going forward.
How does someone get from inaction to action and from
excuses to results? Well I can tell you that it definitely doesn’t happen while
we are satisfied with the Status quo of our life. In order to get more from
life we have to put more into life.
There is no magic bean or cure.
Preparing
for the future means learning from your past and living in the present. Wait, did you get that? I said….
PREPARING
FOR THE FUTURE MEANS LEARNING FROM YOUR PAST AND LIVING IN THE PRESENT.
Give
yourself a few minutes to marinate on that.
Really think about it and put it in to perspective. No one can change your life until you are
ready for it to be changed. How many
people remember Michael Jackson’s song “Man in the Mirror”? One of my favorite lines is “I’m starting
with the man in the mirror, I’m asking him to change his ways. In fact, change only happens when we are
ready to be changed. People with closed
minds and closed hearts stay the same their entire lives and swear up and down
that they were never given a chance at a better life.
Well, by now you should know my feeling about people who
think like that. To give you another example;
do you remember En Vogue? This was an
all- girl group in the 90’s that had a hit called “Free Your Mind”. En Vogue sung ‘Free your mind and the rest
will follow, be color blind don’t be so shallow”.
Go
to YouTube now and listen to these songs.
www.YouTube.com
So how do you get from inaction to action? How do you get the desired results?
The first step is to recognize where you are in life. I
don’t mean your city, state and address.
I mean your financial status. How
much money do you make? How much would
you like to make? Do you like your
current job? Why or Why Not? If you do
not like your job what would you like to do instead? Is education in your way of your dreams?
These are the types of questions you need to ask yourself
and have some honest answers to. Without
understanding where you are in life it will be extremely challenging to put a
plan together for the future.
The second step is to be realistic about your expectations and
honest about how you are going to achieve the results. It’s okay not to have a plan as long as you
are actively trying to put something together.
When I was searching for work and unemployed I started to pin point all
the things I knew I did not want to do or were not good at. This left me with an array of areas of
interest. From there narrow it down and
decide what is important and what is not.
I am going to stop here. I believe I have given you
something to think about. My suggestion
to get you to the next step is to read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. This book will undoubtedly open your mind and
get you on the right path. If you are
like me and have already read the book, go back and re-read it. Trust me, there is even more information the
second time through the book.
Thanks,
Your friend Yolanda
P.S
Your Journey Starts with WHY
