I'm still trying to understand why so many people, me included, become paralyzed with fear over doing something new. "I'm too busy", "I don't have any money", "I have to research it first"-blah, blah, blah. Excuses, excuses. I know, because I had all of these and a lot more besides when we first got started. Let me be clear about that: I'm talking about me, not you. I hear this a lot from other people, yes, but I recognize these excuses because they are all the ones that I made.
The worst one I had was the "I have to do my research." Oh, really, Bill? You're such an accredited researcher that you can dig up stuff that a company paid millions of dollars to do research for their clients could not? And let's be clear here: I'm a good researcher. I'm a lot better than most, in fact, because as a historian I've done a lot of that. But still, when a company with a worldwide reputation audits another company, what made me think I could dig up something they couldn't? Nothing. I knew I couldn't. It was just an excuse to keep sitting on my duff.
"I have to do my research". Pffftt. When most people say this, they mean they are going to Google whatever it is they are researching. What they don't know is that you can Google anything, anything, and you will find something bad about it. Think I'm kidding? Google 'Wal-Mart sucks'. Or 'we hate puppies.' Or 'Christmas is a scam.' Or almost anything else you can think of. You will find people out their writing bad stuff about everything. So, how do you decide what to believe and what not to believe? You don't, because you don't have the resources to judge that. And if you allow yourself to be influenced by those people writing bad stuff about almost everything, then you have just given away all of your power over your life to some anonymous Dreamstealer who would be thrilled that they made your life worse.
Want to do your research? Research the companies you can depend on to audit other companies, and believe them. That's research that makes sense. As I finally realized.
When I was too busy to try something new, what I did not stop to think about was why I was too busy, and what I intended to do to change that. See, if your life is too busy to enjoy, or you don't have enough money, you should not be ignoring new possibilities, you should be seeking them out. This is something else that I did not understand. If you do nothing to change your circumstances, then how do you expect them to be any different a year from now, two years from now, or three?
We are working hard to change our life from one of work and more work, to one of work and play. It may take a while, winning the lottery not withstanding, but that's the plan. And you know something? While achieving our goal will be delicious, the most valuable thing we have gained is the change in attitude that comes with being pro-active. You are out there fighting the good fight, working for you and not for your employer, trying to carve out your niche in the world...even when success comes that's not your biggest reward. Changing yourself for the better is the reward that comes without you even knowing it.
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