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

5 Things You Should Know Before You Write Those New Year's Resolutions

I love a clean sheet of paper. I love to make lists. I love to commit to writing what I want to change up in my life. I think it is a great and necessary first step to making it happen. So you would think I would be a big fan of New Year’s Resolutions. But I’m not.

I have my reasons.  For starters, I don’t like the word.  Which is why my list is labeled Intentions. I also don’t think it needs to be the New Year to experiment with change. I think change is necessary to growth and that is a year round activity. But that’s just me. And I tend not to fit into the norm.

Most people will make a list that will be doomed before they finish it. It might even be the same list they wrote last year and the year before that, only now on a fresh sheet of paper. They'll tuck it away someplace safe. Maybe even for a few days they'll act on it. Half way through the year they'll wonder why nothing changed. 

Here's what they needed to know before they started:

1- Don’t call them resolutions!  Resolution is a terrible word. It’s so clinical and unsexy. You’re doomed to failure before you start. Plus, it implies that whatever you were doing before was a big problem that you are now going to re solve. That does not sound like fun, and let’s face it, if there is not a way to have fun with this, why bother? 

2-Experiment with the word intention. Intention has no fixed outcome. You can intend to do something differently. You can intend to create something new. And by intending instead of resolving you allow the Universe to intercede, perhaps delivering up something that is even better than what you originally wrote down. 

3- Remember that true change requires discipline. Yes, discipline. Not a very user-friendly word in our culture. But if it is a 2013 that does not look like 2012 you want, you are going to have to exert some discipline.

For instance, if one of your resolutions/intentions/desires is to expand your business network then put aside at least one hour a week to go and spend on LinkedIn.  Set the timer and don’t get up until  it goes off. And then do it again, next week. 

4-Don’t forget to check your progress. Most of us will forget where we stored the list before Martin Luther King’s Birthday rolls around much less what we wrote on it. If you’re really intent on making some changes in 2013, you need to revisit that list periodically and see how things are going. Set up a schedule of reminders. 

I’ve become a big fan of a program called GoodtoDo that allows me to schedule recurring ToDo’s. This year I will set one so I can check in every month on how I’m doing with my intentions. The beauty of the program is that you don't have to worry about remembering to check in. Through the miracle of technology the program will remind you automatically on the day you told it. 

Let’s face it, in this 24/7 information on overload world we live in, we will all forget, no matter how important or what our age. In fact, it is often the things that we want most to change that we subconsciously push to the back of our mind.

Hold yourself accountable. Or enlist the help of someone or something else. Like GoodtoDo.

5-Read your list out loud. Preferably in the company of a living, breathing witness. Check in with yourself. Can you feel the rightness of your intentions? Are they coming from a true desire you have or what you think you should be doing?  If they make you nauseous, is it the good kind that lets you know you’re on the right track and headed towards something good? Or is it the kind that is a warning signal to you that this isn't really what you want on your list this year?

Now go to it! Make that list. Check in on it every month and let me know how it goes. Happy New Year!

After The Fireworks

According to the Oxford American Dictionary to discipline oneself to do something is to train oneself to do something in a controlled and habitual way. 


Discipline is key when you are creating, whether it is a new novel, a new business or getting in gear to find your next job. But it all disappears like a display of fireworks in the night sky on the 4th of July when you take a break. 


Breaks are important. Critical in fact for any work you are involved in. But if you are like me, as disciplined as I can be, after a few days away, there is a lot of walking in circles before I can focus again.
Like this morning. I treated myself to a long holiday weekend filled not just with company of good friends, lots of sunshine, the beach and yummy food, but to a break from writing and from the addictive world of social networking and the Internet.  Away from it all, I made lists of projects I wanted to start and all those to dos that needed to be done. I felt inspired and fortified and anxious to get back to it. But today I'm sitting here surrounded by those papers watching the morning fade. 


I'm a self starter. I always have been. It is an important attribute in the world of sales, one that I get to make good use of as an authorpreneur and coach. But having that skill and honing it doesn't make days like today disappear. They show up uninvited and torture my reinventor mind.
The trick is to figure out what one little thing you can do to break through the dam that seems to have been built during your break. As a sales person, it was often as simple as making one appointment and getting the hell out of the office. For someone looking for a new job, it might be as simple as picking up the phone and following up on your last three interviews. 

Photo courtesy of Nancy Moon Public Relations

For me this morning, it was opening my morning pages document, the one where I write from a stream of consciousness to see what comes out or as one former writing teacher called it dreck which I believe is Yiddish for garbage. This is what I got this morning. An idea for a post. You might still consider it dreck but for me it was a baby step to get back into the discipline of creating after those fireworks.