Is this what you’ve been telling yourself?
What do you think is too late for you?
Maybe you are sitting there at work reading this post, thinking it’s too late for you to go back to school and get your master’s degree.
Maybe you are taking a few minutes out of your weekend and you’re thinking it’s too late to start your own business, learn a new skill, travel, or work on that idea you’ve had for years.
This isn’t the first time you’ve had that thought either is it?
You’ve spent time dreaming about how, in your mind, those things would be nice, but it’s too late.
You’ve stared off into a faraway place and imagined what it would be like if you actually had the time, skill, means, resources, etc. to see that dream come to fruition.
You may not admit it to me, or even your closest confidants, but you’ve had a touch of envy creep up when you’ve seen someone fulfill their dream before you have even started on yours.
How do I know?
Because I’ve done all these things too!
In fact, this question continues to pop into my mind with a great deal of regularity.
I ponder if it is too late for me to actually do enough to see a level of momentum that makes it all worthwhile.
Why in the world do we continue to ask that question over and over?
In my opinion, it boils down to two key culprits: fear and distraction.
FEAR
We could exhaust the subject of how fear holds us back from doing things we truly dream of doing and there are countless materials available to look at that in depth. Perhaps at some point, we’ll dig into that further, but not today.
Today, all we should be discussing about fear is this – “Thinking will not overcome fear, but action will.” –W. Clement Stone
“Thinking will not overcome fear, but action will.” –W. Clement Stone Click To Tweet
We all have it, we’ll never fully be rid of it perhaps, but taking action will help us overcome it.
DISTRACTION
Maybe something less discussed is the culprit of distraction.
To be fair this enemy can be self-induced a lot of times.
We sit down to write out a plan of action and the phone buzzes with a new text message. “I’ll reply to this quickly, it’ll only take a second.”
20 minutes later we’re browsing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, emails, etc. because the text we sent reminded us that we hadn’t checked Facebook today and we needed to make sure we were caught up on emails and it snowballed into an entirely too long distraction.
We look up and realize that now it’s time to fix dinner, feed the dog, pick up the kids, run an errand, etc.
This cycle repeats itself day after day and as much as we think we are trying to work on our dream, we allow distractions to trump our feeble efforts.
There are even tools out there to cut out distractions. But, let’s be honest, we just can’t seem to eliminate them.
So is it too late for us?
I would emphatically answer that with a resounding, “NO!”
Can we move past fear? Absolutely.
Can we reduce distractions? Most certainly.
Here are 3 simple things that I recommend giving a try.
1. Be accountable
Find someone that you trust that you can be accountable to.
Maybe it’s your spouse, a parent, a mentor, a best friend, it doesn’t matter. Find that person and ask them to hold you accountable to being productive.
Reach out to them on a consistent basis, every day or every other day, and have them ask you 1 question – Are you moving forward?
2. Set attainable goals
Don’t decide to start a business today and expect to sell a million dollars in product in 6 months. (Unless you have a proven commodity or revolutionary idea that just doesn’t happen often.)
Be honest with yourself and know your limitations. Understand the commitments that each goal will require and set yourself up for success.
The worst thing we can do is decide that we won’t sleep for a week so we can get our business off the ground or we’ll sacrifice every luxury we’ve enjoyed starting today so we can save up enough to quit our job in 2 weeks.
Be realistic with what you have and build your plan around that.
3. Be better than just 1 person
We really only have to be better than 1 person and that’s the person we were yesterday.
If we can do just enough to be more successful, healthier, wiser, kinder, more compassionate, more giving, etc. than the person we were yesterday, that’s a win.
Regardless of how immobile and frozen these things have made us up to this point, rest assured, it’s NEVER too late.
Don’t let this mindset that has fueled your inaction and mantra of “what if”exist any longer.
Follow these steps and you’ll begin to leave the “what if” behind.
Are you held captive by fear or distractions? Try these tips and comment below to let me know if they helped.
