Step 8: It’s a Decision

“It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions.”
Jim Rohn

READ IT

The other night I saw the movie “Apollo 13” again on TV. Saw it in the movie theater many moons ago. (Hee Hee – get it, that’s my moon joke!). I’ve seen it a number of times on television. One of the lines from the movie that really caught my ear was from Tom Hanks, who plays astronaut Jim Lovell. The scene is at the beginning of the movie when Hanks is in his back yard, sitting in his lawn chair, gazing up at the moon. You hear the voice of Tom Hanks as he states, “People think going to the moon was a miracle. It wasn’t a miracle, it was a decision.”

How true that statement is! Any destination, especially those with paths untraveled or unfamiliar are often hard and intimidating. When people decide to overcome all obstacles and obtain their goals, we often view the success as a miracle.

I have a good friend that is a sports psychiatrist that works with a number of professional athletes. When working with them one of the questions he poses to his clients is, “What highlights do you see on ESPN’s Sport Center or the evening sport report?” They are the incredible, the couldn’t be done, moments in sport that ARE DONE! A football player makes a one handed, diving catch with two defenders on top of him. A baseball outfielder turns, running to the back stadium wall, climbs the barrier and in a last second effort, leaps with outstretched glove and snags the winning ball from a certain home run. Or a golfer going to the last shot on the 18th hole, needs to have a great chip shot to put her in a position to make the put to push the match to a play-off round, sinks the ball from the rough and wins the tournament! Are these miracle performances, or hours and hours of blood, sweat and cheers that they put in, to put themselves in that position to achieve that level of success?

We also have the capability to make our own miracles happen every day! The miracle starts when there is a total belief in the expected outcome of your decision. There has never been a miracle unless there was first a belief in the task, and second progress put to the actions.

As we head toward our second month of the 52 Step Process, I ask you – HAVE YOU OBTAINED YOUR EXPECTED OUTCOME SO FAR DURING THIS PROCESS? If not yet, when? If not yet, why not? I’m asking you to instill the same belief in your task, whatever it may be, that you had when you first got into this blog. Make the decision that you will reach your goals. Put into motion today the proper actions that will lead to the destination you want tomorrow.

A MIRACLE? That’s simple. IT’S A DECISION!

DO IT

1. Re-examine your goals from the first week. Take out your Mini-Step Goals and look them over. Have you been following and reaching your 5 Mini-Step Goals? If you’re not reaching or stepping up to your Mini-Steps – your chance of a miracle will be tough. Can it be done, it sure can…but only by you making the decision each day and each week to step up to those mini-goals, the miracle that you are looking for will come true.
2. Now I want you to REWRITE those 5 Mini-Step Goals. This time make the decision, and write it down of when you’ll do those mini-steps, how you’ll do those mini-steps, where (if it applies) you’ll do those mini-steps, and who you’ll get to help you do those mini-steps. In my case of writing my book, my “when” for writing is each evening, Monday through Friday at 10:00 at night. My “how” is sitting down each night and writing four steps. My “where” is in my office with the television off, my cell phone off, music on, doors closed at the computer. My “who” is a good friend that follows up with me every few days to ask if I am on task, did I get my four steps written. If I didn’t get it done, a reminder that I need to work harder the next night and get eight steps taken care of. It keeps me on track to get a book done in under a month! If you notice, I even set my schedule to have the weekends off for personal time. The schedule allows me to reach my big goal of putting out five books and training manuals this year. As soon as one book is done, I’m able to move on to my next project!