Just Do It

Have you ever come up with a great idea, planned it all out in your head, maybe even wrote it down. Then when it was time to take action, you didn’t…? Maybe you got a phone call, or had something “important” to take care of first? Maybe it was the right idea, wrong timing? Stop doing that…

Think back to a time when you were super passionate about something, anything at all, that was out of your normal everyday routine. For example; you wanted to start going to church, or you wanted to start playing on a Wednesday night softball team, or maybe you love baking and you had an idea to start selling your pastries online. Or shoot, maybe you wanted to start a multi million dollar construction company. You were so fired up about it, your energy went from a 2 to a 10, you started feeling AMAZING about yourself, unstoppable even, like your life was about to change for the better. But then… that’s where it stopped. You resumed your Netflix movie and you shrugged off the idea.

Take yourself back to a moment just like that and ask yourself why didn’t you do it?

Was it fear of failure? Fear of judgment? Laziness? All of the above? Now the last thing I will have you do is ask yourself if your reasons for inaction were worth it? 

Hard hitting questions I know… The point was not to piss you off, make you feel like a failure, or to tell you some crazy story that I made the jump and now I'm a billionaire…  but to tell you that you’re one move away from taking action. You’re on the edge of the diving board, all you need to do is lean forward. You will never know who you will become or what you can accomplish unless you jump, Matt and I still don’t know… The only difference between us and you is that we took action. We have those same thoughts that you might be having in regards to starting something new, but we didn’t let them stop us. 

Currently, it’s been about 14 months since Matt and I took the leap towards our “great idea.” We are not millionaires yet, our lives have not dramatically gotten better, we aren’t enjoying our summers on a yacht in the Caribbean and our winters in the Alps. We still have no idea if we will get to that point, but one thing we can both say is that we are glad we made the leap. Are there pressures and stresses every day of our lives? Absolutely. We both started families and this business in the same year, we both have other commitments and obligations, just like all of you, but the difference is, we took action. I don’t say this to boast, but to let you know, that at the time that I write this, Matt and I don’t know if this will work. We are only 1 step in front of you because we decided to jump off that diving board. It isn’t pretty and it’s hard, but it’s fun to chase a passion that gets us out of bed every morning. So, I urge you to consider what I am saying the next time you get fired up about something. Take that idea as far as you want to, you never know!

If you’re on any form of social media, you have probably heard dozens or more people who are super successful tell you that you gotta get out there and do it. “Spend X amount of hours before and after work, on the weekends building a business…” “You need 12 streams of income to be successful” or “If you’re not trying to achieve your goals or work toward something, you must be afraid (or lazy or crazy).” blah blah blah. As annoying as you might think they are. Just sitting there in their ivory tower trying to tell you what you need to do to achieve goals, and tell you what type of person you are… They might be right… But does it matter? Did any of it motivate you at all to hear from someone that has already made it tell you about all that hard work they did paid off? Most likely not… I bet you spend quite a bit of time convincing yourself that those people are the lucky ones and it could never happen to you. Right? Maybe you are right… Maybe you will never be as rich and famous as the influencer who is drilling you about getting off your butt and getting started. Who cares?

If something comes to you that fires you up, just do it. Go as far as you can with it and if you realize it’s not for you, that’s fine! Go to church for a month if that’s something you’re curious about. Join that softball league for one season. Set up a pastry stand on a busy street every weekend for a month. Will you be successful? Will this be something you do for life? Who knows! The only way to find out is to DO IT. My thought is that the more ideas that you take as far as you can, the more fulfilled and happy you will ultimately be. I can attest to this. I am not saying quit your job and do something that popped in your head once, but take your ideas for a test ride and see if it’s right for you. As I said before, as of the day I write this, Matt and I have 0 clue if we will achieve our goals and be as successful as we want to be, but we took action and we will continue to do so for as long as it takes, because for us, it IS worth it.

There’s my Vince Lombardi speech… I hope hearing this from someone who might be in a similar boat as you helps you realize that the only thing stopping you from doing what you want to do is YOU. Who knows? it might work!