Are you living in the land of "Comfortable Enough"? Do you know how you got there or why you stay? Do you really want to stay - or would you rather move to the land of your dreams?
Whether or not we make plans to do something big, life goes on. We start at one point when we’re born and continually move forward. Time never stops; it never slows down to wait for us to plan or take action; and it never turns back so we can capture something we may have missed along the way.
At one point, life opens up before us like a wide crevasse. Our current life is where we are now. The life of our dreams is on the other side of the crevasse.
In between – in the crevasse – lies an alternate life waiting for us. If we don’t make plans before we arrive at the crevasse to reach the life of our dreams, and if we don’t act on those plans before we get to the edge, we will simply fall into whatever life happens to be there when we arrive.
Most of us don’t plan or act quickly enough, and we land in the crevasse. Many of us land near the top, in what I call the land of “comfortable enough”. This can be a very dangerous place to live because things are "good enough," so there’s no pull to do anything differently. In fact, we’re afraid to try, for fear of losing our place there and falling further into the crevasse, making our life worse!
But if we continue to do nothing different, we could stay there forever, never quite reaching the life of our dreams... or we may continue the downward slide, not realizing we’re slipping further into the crevasse, letting the life of our dreams slip further and further out of view. We fool ourselves into believing things are fine, and allow a worse life to sneak up on us, and before we know it, we're at the bottom of the crevasse without realizing how or when we got there!
It doesn’t matter where in the crevasse we land. If we’re in the crevasse, we’re not in the life of our dreams!
Are you in the crevasse? Are you trying to climb out of it?
Lots of obstacles are placed in our way as we try to climb out, but we must do whatever it takes if we’re ever to reach our biggest dreams in life! At one point, I was so far down in the crevasse that I could barely see the sunlight. But an arose one day that forced me to face reality and DECIDE, once and for all, whether it was time to take action and change my life, or continue lamenting the fact that I hadn't reached the land of my dreams.
In an instant, your life can begin to change if you make the conscious decision to seize opportunities as they come along and take action to accomplish your dreams.
Make that decision today... take the risk to help yourself move out of the land of "comfortable enough" and into the land of your dreams.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
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4 comments:
Dear Sandy:
Well said! All of us are just a positive decision away from leaping the crevasse and, thereby, living our lives to its true potential.
In my book, I relate your thoughts in this article to the idea of leaving an impactful legacy. I encourage people to "choose to make their life a wonderful ride rather than just a disappointing fall into eternity. Now, there's a crevasse (eternity)if we don't plan our daily life well enough to leave that positive legacy.
All the best,
Gary Greenfield
Profit Through Performance</a
Wow, Gary - that's a great point. Do we really want to fall into eternity... or leave a wonderful legacy to fill that crevasse and inspire others long after we're gone? I know we, as speakers, are all trying to leave a legacy of helping others... let's hope our efforts inspire many more to leave their legacies as well!
Sandy
Great thoughts Sandy,
From my perspective there is much to be gained especially with what I call “Intelligent Risk”. A number of years ago I was new in position managing the Fresh Food and Bakery categories for 7-Eleven North America. I was asked by our then EVP/CEO to plan and execute a key program. The strategy made sense to me and I enthusiastically agreed. Shortly afterward one of my counterparts mentioned the exact same program had been launched previously and was a, “miserable failure”. My take was that some felt it advisable to keep their heads down and play it safe. With this wonderful news in mind I developed the business case, met with the key stakeholders and, after a great deal of educating and collaborating, received buy in and cost concessions. In the end the program brought in 11million in additional sales and was a significant win for our suppliers, our company and most importantly the customer. Though I am no longer with the organization it is gratifying to see the program return successfully each year. Planning, communicating, learning from others mistakes and working through the plan facilitates an environment where one can take “intelligent or informed” risk - the up side will likely be considerable reward. Perhaps there was some naïveté on my part as this was early in my career but the decision to take this on made sense to me as a “newbie” in the organization. This intelligent risk taking seems to come more easily with experience and these days I find myself seeking out these challenges as they are generally near and dear to those who have a say in your career and why not play a part in making a significant difference for the customer that is also as impactful and rewarding as possible.
Thanks, Lon! I wholeheartedly agree... if we always just listen to someone who says, "We tried that and it failed" - but never seek to learn why it may have failed and what might help it succeed now... how do we ever progress? It's great to see success stories from someone who took a risk... and maybe your naivete as a newbie was a blessing in disguise! :-)
Thanks for sharing! I hope to hear more of your intelligent risk-taking opportunities in the future.
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