We all love making resolutions to lose weight or start a hobby or something, don’t we? The problem is getting started.
Dorothy Heller illustrated this with an all-too-true poem:
I spent a fortune
On a treadmill,
A stationary bike
And a rowing machine
Complete with gadgets
To read my pulse,
And gadgets to prove
My progress results,
And others to show
The miles I've charted –
But they left off the gadget, which was…
To get me started!
Of course they left it off!
The gadget to get us started lies within. And the best part is...since you already own it, you can use it anytime you want.
A funny story has it that, late one night, a party-goer decided it would be best to walk home. He found a shortcut through a poorly lit cemetery and, in the darkness, stumbled into an open grave.
He tried to climb out but the walls were too slippery. Again and again
he fell back into the grave. Finally, in exhaustion, he settled in a corner to wait for sunlight.
A few minutes later another man cutting through the cemetery fell victim to the same grave. He, too, tried desperately to climb and claw his way out, and he was equally unsuccessful.
As he was about to give up in hopeless resignation, he heard a voice, that of the other man, from the darkness of his pit whispering: "You'll never get out of here."
Hearing that voice gave him such a fright and also all the motivation he needed to jump higher, holding onto a rock piece jutting out and scrambling out of the dismal grave.
He did get out!
He just needed the proper motivation. And in this case, it was a voice telling him it couldn’t be done! That did the trick.
But let me tell you the best motivation, whether we want to accomplish a task, go back to school, start something new or kick a habit, usually comes from your own voice inside. It may not be a voice telling you, you can’t do it like the man in the grave but a voice inside you saying you can!
To be successful, we must want to do it. Others may certainly help to encourage or to pump us up, but, in the end, we will usually succeed only if we have the desire. Today get started on something you’ve been longing to start for a long while..!
Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and author. He blogs at www.bobsbanter.com and can be reached at bobsbanter@gmail.com
