Everyone has a vision for themselves and for the lives they expect to lead, both personally and professionally. We picture how we will spend our time, what we will accomplish, advancements in our careers, adventures we will experience. There's no limit to what we can imagine for ourselves. The same can be said for the lives of our businesses. We imagine how we might pass that next threshold for clients, for profits, or services, for reach.
Imagination, though simultaneously fun and critical, is not proactive. We must decide what we do with that imagined vision. There are those that take steps to make it their reality, and those that simply wait for something, anything, to happen. Days pass, years go by, and suddenly it feels too late to change anything. We've waited ourselves into a position where we feel stuck.
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Making Plans
Isaac Newton's First Law of Motion says it best: "An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force." It's actually physics! By continuing to do the same as we have always done, we will continue to live the lives we have always lived. Another word for this could be stagnation.
Not everyone desires big personal or professional changes, and that's okay, but those that do must become the unbalancing force in their own lives. We must decide what we want, make a list of all that needs to happen in order to achieve what we want, and create realistic, but strict, deadlines for when these tasks must be accomplished. Then the real work starts, the doing.
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Making Excuses
To become our own unbalancing force sounds uncomfortable. Who wants to be unbalanced when our comfort zones are safe and familiar and oh, so convenient? Change can be daunting, but without it, we cannot grow and are left to wonder what might have been. The unknown can be terrifying, but fear should not be allowed to hold us hostage from what we truly desire.
Maybe courage isn't the problem, and we're just experiencing a lagging willpower or habitual procrastination. We have to then ask ourselves, at what point does procrastination turn into plain old giving up? We do not have an infinite amount of time to play with, and yet we tell ourselves we will do that thing tomorrow, or set aside time over the weekend, or after the holidays, or, or or.... It's too easy to assume that someday everything will just work out the way we want it to, or the way it's supposed to. Why wouldn't we want to take control for ourselves and put in the work to ensure the outcome we can't stop imagining?
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Making Moves
For some of us, once we have a certain vision for the future, it is quite impossible to wait. Waiting only means delaying results, or maybe never reaching them at all. The longer we wait, the easier it becomes to accept standing still. There are plenty of people, especially entrepreneurs, who are not capable of merely treading water. We are consistently striving to be the unbalancing forces in our own lives, always striving for more.
Sometimes the greatest motivation of all is seeing results. That validation is tangible proof that all our previous efforts are paying off. Then the cycle repeats. We don't want to lose the ground we've gained, or the momentum driving us forward. This leads to even bigger and better results. Then the realization hits us, that everything is beginning to take the shape we had imagined for ourselves like a vision board come to life.
As previously explored in Chapter Ten: The Great Reevaluation, there is great freedom in investing in yourself. Learn the difference between strategizing and waiting. Waiting should never become a habit, especially if we are waiting out of fear. Life is happening now and it won't wait for anyone. After all, we are only what we do, not what we say we'll do. It's okay to want more as long as we are making consistent effort to earn it.
Is there an aspect of your business or brand that you've been waiting on to improve? Stop playing the waiting game, because there will be no winners. If you need assistance, guidance, or expertise to move forward, then consider that your next step. This is what Noteworthy Communications does every day for business owners who are done waiting and are ready to make real moves toward that vision they have in their minds.