Monday Motivation: Don’t Let a Year Pass You By…

Question #1: If you could go back in time to exactly one year ago, what were all the things last year’s you wanted to accomplish between then and now?

Question #2: How many of those things did you accomplish?

Don’t feel bad if your answer is, “less than zero.” Ok, maybe feel a little bad that you’re using the title of an underwhelming late 80’s movie to answer a question on my blog. But don’t feel bad if you didn’t accomplish a lot. It happens to everyone. All the time.

Question #3: What things do you have in your mind right now that you want to accomplish in the next year?

Question #4: How will you feel if another year goes by and very few (or none) of those get accomplished?

I know, I know, I am starting out this week depressing you (seems an odd approach to a “Monday Motivation” post, doesn’t it?) Ok, I’ll stop now and move on to happier things…

If you read my blog last week, then you probably saw that it was my birthday! (You can read my “38 Lessons From 38 Years” post here)

It was a super fun day – well, five days actually, as I managed to spread the good times out over almost a full week – that’s the upside of having your birthday fall right around a holiday weekend. The downside is that some bars and restaurants like to close on holiday weekends, including the one you were holding your party at at 8PM, which you only find out about at 7PM, which leaves you scrambling to find a new place and let everyone know before some poor schmoe ends up at a closed bar thinking they were the victim of some elaborate Punk’d experiment. But I digress…

So yes, fun day, but also a day of reflection. For me, birthdays are always a time to pause and reflect on the past year, and on all the things I wanted to accomplish since last year, as well as think about all the things I want to accomplish in the upcoming year.

Fun as my birthdays are, there is always a bittersweet moment where I realize, “damn, I let a lot of things slide by another year!”

I am sure you can relate.

If so, I want you to do something for me:

Go into your mental library, and find that dream, goal, or impulse you have had in the back of your head for a long time. You know the one; it’s the one that you are holding on to, telling yourself that you’ll work on it “someday.” It’s the one that whenever somebody else says they did something similar, you immediately say, “Oh, I always wanted to do that.”

(Note: If you are having trouble figuring out what that is, then go through step 1 in my new (and free!) E-book, Smart Ass Success! Learn the 7 Steps to Getting What You Really Want – Even If You Have No Idea What That Is!)

Got it? Good.

Now I have a simple challenge for you: do one thing today to move that dream forward.

That’s it.

It doesn’t have to be a huge thing. It could be as simple as making a phone call, writing an email, brainstorming for ten minutes, or requesting an application.

There’s only one rule: Your action can’t be “research,” “reading,” or “surfing the internet.”

It’s easy to fool yourself into believing you are making progress when you spend hours reading about your topic. And, while it’s true that learning about what you want to do is important, there comes a point, usually way before you do anything about it, that learning and researching becomes procrastinating.

So do one proactive thing today.

I know, I know. You’re thinking, “What’s the point?” right? That dusty old dream is probably so big that five minutes of work on it today won’t accomplish anything.

You’re wrong about that for two reasons:

1 – Five minutes will accomplish something: You will be five minutes closer to completing your goal than you were before. That may not be much, but it’s something.

2 – Today is just the start – If you like what you did today, if you like the feeling of working on that old goal, even if just for a tiny bit, then guess what? You can do it again tomorrow. And then the next day. And then the next…

And who knows, maybe next week five will become ten. And then ten may become twenty. And then twenty may become…

But even if it doesn’t, you’ll be building a key habit: Do something, every day, no matter how small, to progress and improve the areas of your life that are important to you.

Do that every day for a year, and the next time a birthday rolls around you won’t be thinking, “damn, look at the stuff I let slide by for another year!” Instead, you’ll be saying, “damn, look at all I accomplished this past year!”

***

Do you want help figuring out what exactly it is that you want? Or maybe you know, but your problem is that you don’t know how to put together a plan to get you there?  Or perhaps you have a plan, but never feel motivated to follow it? Or you jyst get easily derailed when things go wrong? If so, than the Smart Ass Success! Learn the 7 Steps to Getting What You Really Want – Even If You Have No Idea What That Is! FREE E-Book is for you! It addresses those questions (and more) to help you get on the path towards figuring out what you really want – and then getting it! Don’t let another year pass you by. Click here to download your free copy now!

About

By Avish Parashar. As the world's only Motivational Improviser, Avish uses techniques from the world of improv comedy to engage, entertain, and educate audiences on ideas around change, creativity, and motivation. Connect with Avish on Google+

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