Step By Step

James Henderson
Nov 15, 2018
2 min read

We are halfway through November. Isn't that amazing! I know you have been moving towards your goals. You have achieved them and have set greater ones too, right?

A. What is Your Why If you’re not motivated to do something, you won’t do it. You’ll quit. Starting with why creates the vision. It’s after you have the vision that you determine the medium through which to achieve it. Far too many people start with the medium and get stuck. Without the motivation behind their activity, most people fizzle out or simply “don’t have time for that kind of stuff.” Once you have a strong enough motivation your "why" keeps you from quitting. You’ll keep going, even if you have to change the medium through which your vision is manifest. You’ll be willing to change the “how” until you get it right. It might take decades. It might require switching jobs or hobbies or whatever it is you do 100 times. You may look like a non-committed fool. The truth is, you’re committed to the vision and willing to look foolish. B. Decide What You Want To Do Thomas Edison’s vision to bring light to people was manifest in inventing a light bulb. He may have been brilliant, but by the time he had failed thousands of times to create the light bulb, statistically, he was bound to find the solution he was looking for. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work,“ he said. So many people start stuff, like a business, only to quit when it gets difficult. The problem with quitting your current project only to start another is that you’ll probably just quit the next one too. The problem isn’t usually the project. It’s you. If you put as much work into your current project as you want to in your next project, you’ll succeed big rather than continuously quitting. Sadly, people are chronic quitters. Our decision-making muscles have atrophied. We start a diet and find ourselves sneaking sugary sweets an hour later. We commit to our new pursuit but quit once things start getting complicated. This whole quitting business has crushing psychological consequences. Cognitive dissonance is the mental stress we experience when we experience internal conflict. When our beliefs and actions don’t match, we sense our own hypocrisy and contradiction. It eats us alive from the inside. So, when you decide you want to do something, stick to it. The definition of decision is cutting away all other possibilities.