I had a client once who told me he'd been drinking brake fluid every day.
"Oh my God," I said, "You must be addicted".
"Not at all," he replied.
"I can stop whenever I want!"
Stopping can be an issue with addictions and compulsions, of course.
But when it comes to personal motivation and goal achievement, it seems that
more people are plagued by an inability to get started.
I've been working in the personal achievement arena for over 30 years.
Possibly longer. And when I got started, it was called the Human Potential
Movement. And there were all kinds of encounter groups and seminars and
sweat lodges and drumming circles that got people all fired up and excited about
doing more drumming and sweat lodging and taking more seminars and having more
encounters.
And some folks came back again and again ... and made a serious study of the
human potential ... because they were determined to discover and develop
"all that they could be".
They learned about the cultural practices of aboriginal tribes, mantras and
chakras, astrology, numerology, and they took yoga classes and used
psychedelic drugs to find their "real" self .... and they discovered that they not only
HAD a potential ... but that now it was seriously enhanced.
AND YET, THEY WERE NO CLOSER TO THEIR GOALS THAN WHEN
THEY'D FIRST GOTTEN ON THIS YELLOW BRICK ROAD.
So ... They thought that they'd try something new
And they dressed for success (complete with power tie) and they got their
MBAs, and they printed their business cards and joined toastmasters, and they
said their affirmations and they made vision boards, and they networked, and
got linked in .. and lived in the right communities ...
AND THEY WERE STILL NO CLOSER TO THEIR GOALS THAN WHEN
THEY'D FIRST GOTTEN ON THIS YELLOW BRICK ROAD
And it turned out this NEW way was the old way in a disguise. Same
girl.. different dress.
But we did notice something interesting through the years. Once in a
while, someone would disappear from one of those groups ... they would stop
attending because their lives were getting busier and bigger. They were
losing interest in staring their potential in the bellybutton ... and had gone
out into the world to EXPRESS THE POTENTIAL that they'd always had.
The same potential that was ready from the beginning. Waiting to get started ..
Many people will spend a lifetime saying, "If only ... " or "I wish we could ... "
While a few others are simply saying, "Lets!"
You have it in you to be great ... You have it in you to fulfill your
dreams.
As Nike says,
"Just DO it."
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