What Do You Think is Going to Work, If Not The Thing That Actually Will?
How to stop looking for shortcuts and follow through on hard things.
If you’re human, you probably have desires for your future.
Even if you can’t see far ahead, you probably have more immediate things you would like to accomplish.
You have desires and wishes and yearnings and ambitions, and in your thirst to follow through on these goals, you’re probably getting impatient.
Due to your lack of patience, you’re probably chasing shortcuts and other methods that won’t work as opposed to sticking to and following through on the things that will.
And here’s the catch: You already know what to do. Don’t you?
You’re already aware that accomplishing your dreams requires hard, deliberate, and smart work; perseverance; patience; consistency; feedback; a growth mindset; focus; and sacrifice. And yet, you’re too busy looking for a path to take that is easier and a little more mindless; something that won’t require grit and patience because it isn’t as grand; something you can do inconsistently without the need to learn from your mistakes; something that you can approach with a fixed mindset and a little less focus; and definitely something that doesn’t require you to sacrifice anything you don’t want to.
You’re too busy looking for a path you can stomach as opposed to accepting that your stomach needs to meet the demands of the path.
In the history of dreams, never has someone accomplished them by doing the things that have never been responsible for accomplishing them. So why waste your time when you know it won’t work?
I ask you: What do you think will work, if not the thing that actually will?
This is YOUR life. YOUR hands. All in or all out.
It’s time for you to stop wishing there was an easier way and start accepting that you need to be better.
The shortest cut you can make toward your dreams is that “long cut” you keep avoiding.
Clayton Christensen, the former famed Harvard Business School professor, stated that
“It’s easier to hold your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold them 98 percent of the time.”
If you aren’t fully committed, then you will always be in conflict and self-sabotaging. You will always be standing in your way. You can’t have one foot in and one foot out.
All of the time you spent looking for shortcuts could’ve been used to chase the only “long cut” that will work.
What if life were happening FOR you, and not TO you?
If you choose to look at life from this perspective, everything will change for you.
It doesn’t matter what has happened in your life until this point and whether or not you caused it. I implore you to think about everything that has happened thus far as leading toward some purpose.
I know it might sound crazy and ignorant. I know. Some people have been dealt the worse hand imaginable. You aren’t supposed to feel okay. It’s not fair by any means. I’m not trivializing this. I care about you.
What good has cursing the gods and playing the victim done for you, beside make things more miserable?
Imagine the story it would be to be able to tell the world how you overcame the obstacles thrown your way instead of becoming a slave to them.
Imagine how much better it would make your life feel. Imagine the growth you will experience when you learn from any previous mistakes and conquer previous obstacles.
How I see it is that you can either hate life, love it, or be indifferent toward it. I think hating it and being indifferent lead to that same, dark, regretful, and unfulfilling place. I think loving it and choosing to see each part of it as a necessary step in your journey to venture beyond is what brings purpose and fulfillment.
It doesn't mean you have to lie to yourself about how you feel. It doesn’t mean you will love life all the time. It simply means you have a purpose and nothing is going to stand in your way.
I don’t think it’s worth your time to spend it being miserable.
It may be hard, but you wouldn’t want it any other way.
Maybe I sound stupid here. Maybe you wish your dreams were handed to you.
But I’d wager there are a lot of you out there who know, deep down, you just want to be better. You want to step up to the challenge and change as a person. You want to be that desired future self. You want to prove that this whole thing is possible. You want to be the rare few who actualize their dreams.
It may be hard to change, but you wouldn’t want it any other way. You don’t want to cheat. You don’t want the dream without the journey because the journey is what makes the dream worth it.
Don’t you want to be responsible for your success?
It’s time to accept that the path to your dreams isn’t unknown.
You already know what to do, and if you don’t, there are plenty of resources out there to put you in the right direction.
Never underestimate the power of patience, hard and consistent work, and grit. Those are the cornerstones of it all. Everything else just falls in line.
Start using the time and energy you’ve spent avoiding and channel it in the direction of doing.
Watch your life change.
