In review, we’ve talked about your WHY, your WHO, and your WHAT. I want you to grasp tightly to the reasons WHY you are doing something. If you have a WHY, then the work isn’t just work – it has purpose! Also, you can’t be all you can be alone – you need some WHO’s in your life to teach you, support you, and help you! Also, you need to know exactly WHAT it is you want or you will just be chasing the wind!
Today, let’s talk about your WHEN. I often hear people say, “When we have enough money, we’ll get married.” I’ve got news for them – that hardly ever happens! Why would you let your net-worth affect the date you begin spending your life with the one you love? I also hear, “I’ll start my diet on Monday – after I eat this cheeseburger.” Tomorrow never comes and you’re just wasting time. If you could get exactly what you want, why would you put it off? You’re robbing yourself of time with what you want!
Your WHEN happens when you decide to take the first step. It’s not when you stand on the scale and hit your goal weight! It’s when you make a decision to change. It’s not when you pay the last debt payment! It’s when you cut up the cards and start paying more than the minimum payment. The length of the journey is not what is important – it’s the journey itself. The size of the step isn’t important, either. It’s simply taking one – one single step that begins a new direction, bringing you closer to where you eventually want to be! This can be with any goal; diet, business, relationship, or spiritual goal!
Too many times we are waiting for the right time, or the right place, or the right economy, or something else to begin our journey. Does what you want depend on external situations? If so, change your mind about that! Here are a few facts for you to consider:
- Proctor & Gamble was started during the Panic of 1837, the greatest economic decline since the birth of the country! Proctor & Gamble’s revenue in 2013 was $84.17 Billion.
- The three founding companies that merged in 1911 to form IBM, all were founded during the Long Depression of 1873-1896.
- General Electric was born during the Panic of 1873 which shut down the NYSE for days! The Panic didn’t stop the company who in 2013 had revenues of $146 Billion Dollars. Not bad, huh?
- General Motors was founded after the Panic of 1907, which caused major runs in which many financial institutions did not survive.
- FedEx was founded during the Oil Crisis of 1973. Really? A delivery company founded during a fuel crisis? Whoulda thunk?
My point is to stop making excuses and start taking steps. Your WHEN is today! You don’t have to know the whole plan! You don’t even have to know half the plan. You just need to know the dream or goal in your heart, and then find the next right thing to do. Your Journey begins with a single step.
Here are some interesting facts about time:
- We all get the same amount per day
- How we use our time is a choice
- Once time passes, we can’t get it back
If we each get exactly the same amount of time per day, why can some people do more with it than others? Why are some wildly successful in their careers, family life, and passions while others seem struggle to just get basic things done? I believe the answers can be found in the second fact – how we use the time we are given is a choice.
I sometimes hear people say, “Everything comes easy for him” or “I’d be successful, too, if I’d been given the chance.” I even said, “He got his college paid for and his career handed to him” about one of my friends. And I’ve had people tell me, “Of course you lost the weight. If I had The Biggest Loser, I’d lose the weight, too!” Unfortunately this is all too common. We tend to make excuses of why we don’t have what we really want when it’s really more about how we use the time we are given.
Every person I have talked to who is successful in a business, their family, or their skill tells me the same thing – they’ve put the time in. They were handed a choice of what to do with their time – whether to watch TV or spend some time with their kids. Maybe to play golf on Saturday or to work on that client’s file they’ve wanted to land. Each choice is not right or wrong – but they do have a price & benefit. The price might be your golf game might suffer, but the benefit might be that you land those clients that make your business successful. The price might be that don’t get to find out who was voted off the island but the benefit is a closer relationship with your children.
Remember, the choices aren’t right or wrong, they are just different. What we can’t afford to do is walk around blaming where we are on outside circumstances instead of our choices. When we do this, we fall into a victim mentality – a mentality that we do not control our own destiny, but the things that happen to us do. We need to practice a responsible mentality – that we are where we are because of the choices that we have made. When we practice a responsible mentality, we can do the most important thing: change our choices to change our results! But when we blame our failures on outside circumstance and practice a victim mentality, we give away the very power we have to change our life – our right to choose.
I urge you to stop making up stories about why others are successful in an area and you are not. Ask them how they built their business, built their family dynamic, or became an awesome guitar player – I’ll bet they’ll tell you they chose to work their tails off and put in the effort to get what they really want.
Remember that friend of mine I thought got his college paid for and his business handed to him? Actually, his father made him pay for his own schooling, and he worked long, hard hours for the first 5 years of his business to build it to where it is now – a multi-million dollar company. So when I see him playing golf on Saturday, I know the truth about his success. He earned it – by choosing to spend his time getting what he really wants. And I lost the weight on The Biggest Loser by choosing to work hard – 7 to 8 hours per day – and no one handed me that. I worked for it!
