It matters.
It doesn’t matter what it is, we all have one, and my it probably isn’t yours. It doesn’t matter. It does matter. What matters is that you find a way to crawl, walk, or run your way toward it every day.
It isn’t about being particularly good at it at the start. Isn’t that why we quit? Amazing is a function of time and intensity. Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers documents the “10,000 hour rule”; i.e. excellence comes when you near 10,000 hours of experience in a specific field. So if you don’t put in the time with intensity then kiss it goodbye.
It isn’t about having others endorse it or even know about it. If what others think about it matters more than what you think about it then it’s the wrong it. It is about you doing it for you.
It, for it to be worth all the effort, will be impossible to how you have been doing things. Impossible as in you’ve tried a thousand times to loose 10 lbs, to play the violin, to earn a million dollars, to overcome an addiction.
You were created to do the impossible. People who are no longer in your life told you it couldn’t be done and you believed them. Shame on them. Yes. You can. God created you to do the impossible. God is not glorified by your small thinking.
The moment you commit to it providence swings into play like a fly wheel. The moment you declare the impossible it possible you begin to tap the inner resilience to be creative, you become single minded, you settle for nothing less than it. You find a way. You fail. You come to the end of yourself and your limited resources only to find God eager to help.
It won’t be easy.
The power you harness as you crawl, walk. or run will always be met with resistance. Steven Pressfield wrote passionately about the shadow it in his gem The War of Art.
Resistance will nail your knees to the floor, freeze you with indecision, paralyze you with procrastination. Once you commit yourself to it resistance knocks on your door like a chocolate bunny. Resistance is a ruthless enemy that whispers “Do it tomorrow.”
The secret to making it happen?
Crawl, walk, or run every day. No matter what. What you lack will be given as you find a way to make it happen. And it is nothing less than the impossible that will demand as Kipling wrote in If, the capacity to stretch every nerve and sinew to run with endurance the race before you filling every minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run.
Begin where you are. You can. You know what it is. You may never have spoken about it to another person or even said it out loud but you know what it is. Whatever it is you can find it if you crawl, walk, or run toward it every day.
Yes. Every day, find a way.
You can.
12/29/11 Carmel, CA