I have a minivan in my driveway. It doesn’t start. I should be checking it but, apparently, time is not on my side these days (or so I think).
You see, it’s easier to fill the time with busy work than to add valuable items to the todo list and actually complete them. It’s simpler to feel like I’m making a difference that way instead of reflecting on what’s really moving the needle.
Today though, I had to move my wife’s car out of the driveway. I instinctively had to look at the tires for some reason and saw that one was a bit flat. I ended up calling my mechanic for an appointment to fix this and once it was fixed, I remembered to ask for the minivan so this issue too can finally be resolved.
All this to say that the circumstances ended up forcing me a bit to take action. Sure, the flat tire would still have happened even if I had my minivan checked up beforehand but I wouldn’t appreciate the event as much and probably would’ve complained a lot more today anyway.
I know this example might seem childish or trivial but it’s on little things that we can build for bigger goals.
In other words, it’s best to act sooner rather than later: waiting for some incident to force your hand is not a good approach. Putting the blame on external events is far from being a winning situation. Doing so is giving up on the small part of life we have control of: the ability to act.
So the question you can ask yourself is: will you act when life presents you with a challenge or will you wait and let it become too big to handle?
What do you think? Let’s talk!