Originally posted on Facebook HERE
Not much to see when you get up this early. If you could see outside the window today, it’s a fantastic view of the dumpster we rented. When it came we thought it was way too big for our project – but… it isn’t. Man, it filled up fast. Remodeling is super stressful. It costs a lot, there’s many, many decisions to be made – what color do you want? What style? Which door knobs, what handles?… Countertops? We have 8 million variations to choose from. And you never really know what it’ll look like until it’s done. In the meantime, everything is torn out, dusty, and you’re living in a small section of your house. Nothing is where it usually is. All this in the hopes that when it’s all over we’ll have a shiny new upstairs for the rest of our lives. A couple months of pain for a lifetime of gain. A full dumpster of garbage. In the process, everything we have has to be taken out, looked at, and decisions need to be made on whether or not we’re going to keep it. Amazing how much stuff accumulates for no purpose over a lifetime. When a new year comes, many people try to remodel their lives. They set goals, start fitness plans, try to move in a new direction. All change is unsettling. It means doing something differently than you have in the past. It feels awkward. It doesn’t come with any guarantees. It boils down to this: what do you see as the ultimate benefit here? When the benefit outweighs the risk, then and only then will you actually move forward with the resolve to accomplish the goal. Often, change will not occur until and unless we see it as something we MUST do. Because when you embark on making changes with a haphazard goal, it’s too easy to give up. You need a burning desire. You need the end in sight – and you have to believe you can do it. If your goal is to lose fifty pounds by the end of the year, but your head is full of all the reasons you can’t do it, and the goal isn’t really as burning of a desire as continuing life as you know it, you’ll most likely fail. But – have a health scare, almost die, and have a doctor tell you if you don’t lose fifty pounds fast you probably will die – well, now you have a burning desire to make that change. Change is all about motivation. If the end isn’t really anything you’re excited to get to, it won’t happen. You have to see the finished result first, then go get it. Yes – you’ll see it when you believe it. Every year I pick a few changes to make in my life, I see the goal accomplished in my head, then I make it happen. And I find ways to hold myself accountable along the way. If we don’t periodically look at our lives, and consider what we can do to improve ourselves, we can wind up stuck in a pattern not unlike keeping that robins egg blue bathroom from the 70s in your house. Yes, it still functions – but are there other options to consider? Would a small change in our routine lead to a positive gain for the future? Maybe there’s a dumpster full of garbage to remove, too… It’s always easier to do nothing than to do something. Periodically look at every aspect of your life, and consider where it could be improved. Then start moving toward the goals that excite you. Otherwise you’ll die with a robins egg blue bathroom in your head. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with that, but man – opportunity is all around us every second of every day. Grab it while you can.
