It’s been a long time since I let my fingers feel the keyboard. Not including emails, status reports and other organizational pink slime … my fingers haven’t roamed freely in a while.
The longer my fingers went without furling words into the world, the more reasons I came with for why they could not do so. Standard stuff … not enough time, no space for peaceful thought, not the right time, etc.
All the excuses were bullshit. They always are.
Don’t believe me – let’s play a game.
Why haven’t you …
Stopped:
- Smoking
- Eating sugary/fatty food
- Sleeping in until you HAVE to get up
- Shopping compulsively
- Facebooking mindlessly
- Watching Hoarders
- Staying up too late
- Micromanaging your team
- Watching sports endlessly
- Speaking unkindly to others
- Drinking to excess
- Etc., etc.
Started:
- Working out
- Eating vegetables and fruits
- Calling friends/family more often
- Waking up an hour earlier than you ‘need’ to
- Getting yourself a small treat as a reward for a small (or big) victory
- Using social media with purpose
- Reading a challenging book
- Gone to sleep in time to get 7 hours
- Treating your employees like adults
- Playing a sport
- Encouraging others
- Drinking to deeply enjoy
- Playing guitar again
- Going to church (or whatever others-focused community group you believe in)
- Etc., etc.
These are small things we’re playing with. I’m not asking about why you didn’t start a business to provide drinkable water to the continent of Africa.
Go ahead and ask yourself “why” you haven’t done the things you claim you yearn to do. Then, ask “why” again. And again And again.
While you’re doing this … imagine being your best friend. Put yourself outside yourself. At what point would you call ‘bullshit’?
You either don’t want these things … you may want to appear to want them, maybe because someone else does, or because you’re supposed to. Or your choosing to live out actions from the Stopped list instead of from the Started list.
Sadly or gloriously we are the product of our choices. Choice is a multiplier.
Choose to eat a healthy omelette with spinach and tomatoes? That’s one less Cinnabon. Choose an interesting book that challenges your worldview? You gave up some LOL cats and miscellaneous photos of your ‘friends’ (You know the ones you haven’t really spoken to in 23 years) and their kids. Choose to go to bed at a decent time? A few fewer belly laughs with another canned late night interview and two less Ron Popeil pocket fisherman from infomercials or ShopTV.
There is no inert activity. There is no inactivity. Everything produces a result (even sleeping). Choosing to sit on the couch watching Maury while eating stale Peeps from last Easter produces a result. Just not a very valuable one.
Over time these choices multiply. We see the results in pounds gained or lost, smiles or frowns, dollars saved or spent.
Your choices might not reflect the person you want to become or the legacy you want to leave. But you’re making choices.
A new year is beginning. It’s a time we reflect. What choices have you made in 2012?
How have they moved you closer to being the person you want to be? How have they moved you further away?
You have the most powerful wealth multiplier at your disposal at all times.
The answer is simple. It’s just not easy.
Choose.
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