3 Key Questions To Ask If You Want To Make Things Happen

Making things happen, especially the big and important stuff, isn't easy. The first thing that stops most of us is we are convinced we don't really have the time, which was the seed that inspired me to write It Takes An Egg Timer, A Guide To Creating The Time For Your Life. I wanted to inspire and motivate by demonstrating that the time is really there if we want it to be. 

I try to walk the walk. I've made a lot of things happen in the last several years, serious changes in my life transitioning from corporate exec to writer and entrepreneur. I've created alot. This blog, The Secrets They Kept, It Takes An Egg Timer and a coaching practice that is about to evolve into a consulting practice. (More on that in another post.)

But let there be no mistake, there is a lot I have not made happen. Long lists of great ideas that float through my mind, some that even made it to paper but have since fallen away into the ether. 

Which leads me to this. Why is that? Why is it so easy to make some things happen and a seemingly monumental task for others? Is there some cutting edge new App I've missed that can help?

My experience is that it boils down to three key questions: 

• What do you desire?
• Do you think you are deserving of it?
• Are you disciplined enough to take the necessary steps?

Desire 

• What do you really and truly desire to make happen? 
• Do you want it because you want it or because someone else thinks you should?
• Can you put that desire into words, draw a picture of it in your mind or on paper? 
• Can you feel what life will be like when it's for real? 

If not, you've already embarked on an uphill battle instead of an adventurous journey.

Deserving 

• Do you think you deserve the promotion, new job or to grow your entrepreneurial business? 
• Do you believe you are good enough, smart enough, or have enough time to make it happen?

Whether you want to call it self-esteem, self-image or self-love, the level of worth you hold of yourself is as critical to making things happen as the picture of what that thing is. If you don't believe you deserve it, no one else will.

Discipline 
This is the hardest part for most of us. The discipline to commit to a promise to ourselves.

• Being courageous enough to set that silly egg timer and hold ourselves accountable. 
• Understanding that it is not enough to just hold that desire in our hands but to take the steps to move towards that thing we want to make happen.

I wanted to be a writer all my life. But until I got serious about sitting myself in a chair and writing pages every day, it wasn't going to happen.

Disclaimer: This is not a magical formula. 
When I think back to all I have created these last few years, all three of these keys was present, every time. And those ideas that slipped away into the ether.... in every case one of them was missing. No magic formula. No clever new App or beautifully designed digital download. Just what I have found to be a necessary foundation if you are really serious about making something happen.

Hugh MacLeod                               GapingVoid.com