This article will discuss some of the mental tools you can use to regain control over your life. These dormant ideas, once remembered, could transmute your wildest and fondest hopes into reality. When engaged daily, they could make 2009 and every year thereafter-YOUR YEAR.
Author’s Note: This article was originally published in 1998 in the Nassau Lawyer. It has been re-edited and truncated. Core concepts are timeless.
The Recurring Dream
The freezing winter weather has turned the dark, unlit mountain highway into a slick surface of invisible ice. As you car comes out of the turn, it suddenly spins out of control. As you frantically pump the brakes, the vehicle continues on its own independent journey over the ice. Your fruitless efforts to regain control cause you to over steer. This only exacerbates the unrelenting skid. The failure to regain control causes you to be overcome by panic. You are about to open death’s door. As the vehicle continues its unmerciful slide over the embankment, you wake up in time to avoid the “fatal crash”. This horrible dream first haunted you during the final week of 2007. It reappeared as 2008 came to a close.
As 2007 came to an end, you remember promising yourself that 2008 would be different. It would be a year of accomplishments; a year of achievements. However, as you reviewed the past year, you had realized that it was merely a repeat of the previous 365 days. As it turned out, 2008 was another year of missed opportunities. This dream is reminding you that once again, you have failed to take control over your life.
Nature’s Law
Nature’s Law requires that you plant the seed today in order to reap the harvest tomorrow. This concept reminds us that there is always a gestation period. It reminds us that there is a clear cut positive relationship between the present and the future; between cause and effect. The seed of friendship planted today can blossom into the harvest of love tomorrow. The seed of hard work sowed today can grow into the fruit of career advancement tomorrow. The seed of an idea imbedded today can germinate into the roots of problem solving tomorrow. Nature’s Law clearly illustrates that there are no short cuts. In fact, it is the long term approach to dealing with life.
This need for instant gratification merely mirrors the way many products and services are marketed. Many promise quick, fast, instant and speedy results. Accordingly, many of us have come to expect the same kind of results in our business and in our personal lives. The following simple example illustrates the danger of such thinking. Suppose that the top of your desk is cluttered with papers. You now decide that it is time to clean the top of your desk; this is how you clean your desk. You simply sweep the papers onto the floor by moving your arm across the desk. Your desktop is now clean. However, you have created another problem. All the papers that were once on your desk are now on the floor. Expeditious decision making may seemingly cure one problem, while creating another. When you live for instant gratification, your thought patterns become feckless, as you lose the ability to analyze situations properly. Your focus narrows to looking for those shortcuts without evaluating the consequences of those actions. Let’s apply Nature’s Law to the above desktop example: Under this approach, some papers would be filed away, while others would be neatly stacked upon the desk in terms of urgency. Each paper would have to be read and evaluated. It takes time and effort to achieve a positive solution.
DECISION TIME
Some people experienced an unfulfilled year because they have had trouble making decisions. By doing nothing, nothing will change. Accordingly, I’m reminded of a wise statement made by Colin Powell, when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He stated that, “Indecision has cost the American people, American business and the American government billions more than a wrong decision”. The opposite of indecision is taking action. President Kennedy, when speaking about the space program underscored the need for action. It was important to go into space, “Not because it is easy, but because it is hard”. Both Powell and Kennedy knew that the easiest thing one could do was to do nothing at all. “Decision time” galvanizes creative and imaginative forces that can overcome any obstacle. Since the United States put a man on the moon before the end of the decade (1969), Kennedy’s remark can only stand for the proposition that EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
WHY NOT & ACT NOW
Christopher Reeves discovered that an idea may first sound impossible, then over time it becomes merely improbable then it becomes inevitable and unstoppable. This is the gestation period of Nature’s Law at work. Christopher Reeves, before his untimely death, had made phenomenal progress toward moving his limbs.
George Bernard Shaw, in a quote made famous by Robert Kennedy said, “Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not”. Right now, this minute ask yourself “why not”. Barack Obama asked, “Why Not” and look what happened. It is true that the Why Nots of life can be yours. You just have to act now. The last two words are really quite important. The word act is an acronym that stands for A Champion Tomorrow. Action is the key ingredient to get what you want in life. If you want to be a champion to your family; to your friends and to yourself, you must take the appropriate action. This means that you can no longer put off making a decision when the time to act is ripe. The acronym “now” stands for New Opportunity Waits. Nature’s Law rewards those that have planted those seed. Tomorrow new opportunities will always be there for those that make things happen. However, when you merely hope and wait for things to occur, without action on your part, it is like waiting for the sun to rotate around the earth. You will wait forever. If you do not make things happen, you will continue to say, “Next year I will…Tomorrow I will”……………………….
LEARNING VS LEANING
Additionally, the empirical data indicates that many people refrain from taking action; from moving forward because they are simply stuck in the past. They are stuck because they are afraid to fail again. Too many people wrongly believe that their future will be a repeat of their past. The past is only a snapshot of what happened before. Here’s the key: You can have a different future when you LEARN from the past instead of LEANING on your past. The next example illustrates this point.
Picture a major league baseball game played at your favorite team’s stadium. It is a beautiful night. Your team is behind. That is the bad news. The good news is that the bases are loaded. Because of an injury, a pinch hitter is coming to the plate. The batter is a rookie. He is coming up to bat for the first time in his major league career…….It’s strike one, strike two and s t r i k e t h r e e e e e e e . If his past became his future he would strike out every time he came to the plate. Yes, a silly thought. Yet many people believe that they will strike out each time they come to the plate in the game of life. When our rookie comes to plate for his second at bat, his past cannot be changed. Even a rookie can learn from his past. His next time up he relaxed; let his abilities take over; got a hit and won the game. His past was relevant only as a learning tool. He realized that he was too tensed at his first plate appearance. He made the correction. Even if you strike out today in the game of life, tomorrow affords you another chance at the plate. Like our rookie, you can get a hit and get ahead.
MENTAL BLACKBOARD
Here is something you may wish to try when you let your past beat up on you. Just remember the blackboard at school. It was invented so that your errors and mistakes could be forever erased. Carry that blackboard around with you in your mind’s eye. Watch how you will become more confident when you learn from your mistakes. Once you learn from them, erase the mistakes from your memory, while forever keeping the lesson that you learned. Likewise, G-d created another day so that our errors and the hiccups of life could be erased.
BEWARE THE DREAM KILLER
When you are down in the dumps, you might find yourself saying something like this: “Look at me, I can’t get a break. Nobody thinks I can do anything. Again, I got passed over for a promotion. On and on it goes. Most of our thoughts are negative. By the time that we reach age the age of twenty one, we have heard the word “no” or “You can’t do that” or “it won’t work” or “that’s stupid” over 100,000 times. It is easy to see why we become so negative. Accordingly, nothing is ever looking up. We empower others when we see ourselves in the negative light that they see us. Take away that power today. You are you. You are not what someone believes you are. You are better. Opinion givers often expound upon things they know nothing about. Stop giving people the power to control your life.
HEROES
I want to tell you about two people that I alluded to earlier in the article. While growing up they learned that everything is possible. Because they believed in Nature’s Law; understood about the supreme power of the mind; never became a prisoner of their condition; understood that there is no substitute for positive thought and action, each grew up to become A Champion Tomorrow. Tom Dempsey for years held the record for kicking the longest field goal in the NFL. He never would have accomplished this feat had he listened to those who said that a player with half a foot cannot become a kicker in professional football. Jim Abbott pitched in the major leagues. He would never have accomplished this feat had he listened to those who said that a player with one functional arm cannot possibly pitch in professional baseball by throwing a ball and catching a ball with the same arm/hand.
Do two positive things for yourself. Take action and believe in yourself. Don’t let some dream robber take your dreams away again. Make this your year.
When you ACT NOW you can change your life. 2008 is over. 2009 and every year thereafter is your tomorrow. You are at the plate………….Here’s the pitch.
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