How to Know
When You'll Never Do Something
by Julie Broad
How many things are on your "someday" list?
I hear these ones all the time:
- Someday I am going to travel to Australia
- One day I will take my kids to Disneyland
- Someday I will start my own business
- When I am done this project I will quit smoking/lose weight
- When the time is right I will buy my first investment property.
It makes me sad when I hear people say these things because I think they are kidding themselves.
Someday = never.
If I hear myself say someday, and it's something I really want to do, I change that to a date or I start it
right then and there.
And there is something incredibly powerful - almost magical in it's power - when you stop saying someday and set a
date.
For years Dave and I have talked about writing a book. Last year we were talking about our book and I heard one of
us say "someday we'll write a book about ...". I said - not someday. Let's make it 2011.
Dave immediately said, "Well how are we going to do it?"
I said what I almost always say "I don't know yet but we'll figure it out."
I really didn't have any idea how we would make it happen. Yet as soon as we said it out loud, put a date on it and
committed our hearts and minds to it, we suddenly had two different publishers to talk to about proposals. We found
ourselves knee deep in a proposal and then a revision. Last week our revision was turned down but we've made
incredible progress, learned a lot and have had some really great discussions with folks we probably never would
have reached out to had we not been moving forward on a book.
I don't have a book or a book deal right now but 2011 still has a whole lot of time left in it! And, I know that
any goal worth doing is going to test you. At least once - usually a lot more than once - it's
going to stand up big and tall in front of your face and say:
Are you really ready to do this??
It will look big, dark and scary. And trust me, you'll probably consider crying, going to bed, or eating a bucket
of sugary treats, but your answer to the big, tall, and scary test is going to determine your success. Your ability
- actually it's not your ability because we ALL HAVE THE ABILITY - it's your DESIRE to push past the giant obstacle
in your way and say is what is going to determine whether you succeed or fail. Your desire to take a deep breath
and push forward is what will make it happen for you.
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