Stop waiting for Monday

Victoria and I were in Puerto Rico, and she brought me a stack of questions from followers. The first one is a beauty: people sit down on a Saturday, plan out the week, set goals, make an agreement with themselves that Monday I will start the new life. Monday comes, and nothing new starts. Why?

Picture the guy. Saturday night, and he announces: Monday I am going to quit smoking, lose weight, get a new job, get a new car. Notice that every one of those comes down to having something. I am going to get a new job really means I am going to have a better career, have more money, have more success. Lose weight means have a nicer body. It is always have, have, have.

Be, then do, then have

So he plans to do something in order to have something, and it never happens, because he skipped the point. You have to be something first. You have to reach down inside and become the person, the better athlete, the better father, the better businessman, whatever it is that is real for you. The having flows from doing, and the doing flows from being. Get the order wrong and no calendar trick will save you.

And by the way: if it is Saturday, why on earth are you waiting until Monday? You said you want it. Then why is it not happening right then and there? Every time you add time between the decision and the start, you add craziness to the whole thing, and you instantly set yourself up for failure.

This is why I scoff at New Year's resolutions. Are you kidding me? Why are you waiting a whole year to make a resolution to increase the quality of your life? What happened to the other 364 days? Do it now. Start immediately. Do not kick the can to Monday, Tuesday, Friday, or January. Right now, right this second.

Where the energy comes from

The follow-up question was: how do you break the circle? Where do you get the energy to actually start?

Any great thing you want to do in your life, the wherewithal to do it is inside you. Call it your soul, call it your beingness, call it whatever name you like. It comes down to you. The reason it is not happening is not life out there doing something to you. You are the judge and the jury of what happens in your life, and life needs your permission to keep you small.

Yes, the world is loud. Distraction is everywhere, all these noises saying pay attention to me over here, over here, over here. Cutting through that takes self-discipline, and here is the hard news: only you can bring it. You cannot hire a coach to have your self-discipline for you. You cannot rent it from a consultant. You bring it to the table, or nobody does.

The light switch

Think of it like a light switch. You turn it on and you go. Some days you look up and realize it flipped off. Fine. Do not fall into the pit of asking why, why, why. Hit the switch again and get back in.

I will give you a live example. While we filmed this I was sitting on a balcony above one of the most gorgeous views you have ever seen: the whole Atlantic, islands, boats. And what had I spent the previous hour doing? Handling 132 emails. Why? Self-discipline says handle them, keep the show on the road. Paradise outside, laptop open anyway.

Do you really want the thing you said you want? Are you hungry for it, or does it just sound cute on a Saturday night? If you are not willing to give your all for it, what is the point of circling it for years? Decide, start the same minute, and keep reapplying yourself when the switch flips off. It is not easy. Why do you think they call it hard work? But I promise you, keep at it and you will make it there.