What If?
As I write this we are exactly 49 days from wishing each other a Happy New Year. As I look forward to New Years 2012 and reminisce back to New Years 2011, I was reminded of some of my posts almost a year ago. Many were designed to hopefully spur myself and anyone nice enough to read my blog into action. I spoke regularly throughout the early part of the year about New Years Resolutions and reminded my readers to please push towards their goals so that during this time of the year, they'd be closer to them than not.
As is every year, I can pretty safely say many of us probably didn't follow my advice, me included. Too many times I looked for excuses not to work out, too much stuff I had to have to worry about making smart financial decisions, too many hours at the office away from my family because some project which really wasn't that important came before my loved ones. I had opportunity after opportunity to move closer towards my goals and yet, I didn't. I'm just human after all. Right?
Yet this year, while I along with some of you wasn't progressing in areas I wanted to, others did. My friend Laura wanted to lose 50lbs after not having taken care of herself for many years. She lost 52 and ran a half-marathon in the process. My buddy James wanted to finish his bachelors degree. He not only graduated in June, he has begun his Masters already. My boy Derrick called me recently to tell me his lifelong dream of being debt-free came true when he paid off his last credit card on November 1st. These friends are among the many who listened to my advice all those months ago. Yet they are so few in the big picture.
At the end of the day, most of us will move towards these holidays with all kinds of "What If's." Most of us will wonder what we would look like, what we would feel like, how great it would be, had we just stuck with those goals and those New Years Resolutions.
"What if" is one of the most dangerous phrases a human can utter because it is a vague, unfulfilled statement about us. It is a moment where we made a choice, sometimes by not "choosing" at all, to take one path over another and then wondering if it was the right decision. "What if's" eat at us, at our soul, until some of us become paralyzed. I call it Analysis Paralysis. We just stop making decisions, we just stop striving and just exist.
What is craziest about it all is every single day we have the choice to move in any direction we choose. Tomorrow's millionaire begins his path today. The body you want can begin forming right now. The education, the position, the end of an addiction; all of it must begin at the beginning. It must begin at a point in time where you do something different than you did before and you have all the power in the world to choose that for yourself right now, at this moment, as you're reading this sentence. Today is as good a day as any isn't it?
Friends, I remind myself and encourage all of you who still have goals you haven't accomplished to start today. We may only have 49 days left in this year. We may not make it to our goal by the end of the year. Yet if we begin right now, we will be 49 days closer to our goal when the clock strikes 2012. If we don't, I guarantee you, we will be thinking "What If" on that final countdown.
As is every year, I can pretty safely say many of us probably didn't follow my advice, me included. Too many times I looked for excuses not to work out, too much stuff I had to have to worry about making smart financial decisions, too many hours at the office away from my family because some project which really wasn't that important came before my loved ones. I had opportunity after opportunity to move closer towards my goals and yet, I didn't. I'm just human after all. Right?
Yet this year, while I along with some of you wasn't progressing in areas I wanted to, others did. My friend Laura wanted to lose 50lbs after not having taken care of herself for many years. She lost 52 and ran a half-marathon in the process. My buddy James wanted to finish his bachelors degree. He not only graduated in June, he has begun his Masters already. My boy Derrick called me recently to tell me his lifelong dream of being debt-free came true when he paid off his last credit card on November 1st. These friends are among the many who listened to my advice all those months ago. Yet they are so few in the big picture.
At the end of the day, most of us will move towards these holidays with all kinds of "What If's." Most of us will wonder what we would look like, what we would feel like, how great it would be, had we just stuck with those goals and those New Years Resolutions.
"What if" is one of the most dangerous phrases a human can utter because it is a vague, unfulfilled statement about us. It is a moment where we made a choice, sometimes by not "choosing" at all, to take one path over another and then wondering if it was the right decision. "What if's" eat at us, at our soul, until some of us become paralyzed. I call it Analysis Paralysis. We just stop making decisions, we just stop striving and just exist.
What is craziest about it all is every single day we have the choice to move in any direction we choose. Tomorrow's millionaire begins his path today. The body you want can begin forming right now. The education, the position, the end of an addiction; all of it must begin at the beginning. It must begin at a point in time where you do something different than you did before and you have all the power in the world to choose that for yourself right now, at this moment, as you're reading this sentence. Today is as good a day as any isn't it?
Friends, I remind myself and encourage all of you who still have goals you haven't accomplished to start today. We may only have 49 days left in this year. We may not make it to our goal by the end of the year. Yet if we begin right now, we will be 49 days closer to our goal when the clock strikes 2012. If we don't, I guarantee you, we will be thinking "What If" on that final countdown.
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