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Yes, you can.

yes you can motivation inspiration<image via aigle_dore on flickr>

Shaking up your life is terrifying.

Too often we’re unhappy with the way our lives are going.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Acknowledging a problem is the first step toward rectifying it.

But you have to know what you want.

Ain’t no use wanting to make a change but not knowing what that change should be.

That old adage – failing to plan is planning to fail – it’s true.

It’s not enough to decide you want to be all Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall and take off for years to do your own thing – kill zebras, sail on epic ships, visit Indian gurus and who knows what else – they were pretty vague in that film.

You need an end goal and you need to lay out the steps to take to reach that point.

And if you’re really committed to it, you’ll have to get past the fear.

You’ll have to stop throwing up every conceivable barrier, every reason why you can’t.

Maybe you’ll find you don’t really want to follow through. Fine.

But if you DO, then you gotta balls up and take action.

Tell me.

Do you ever get frustrated by people who won’t take steps to take control of their own lives?

And how do you determine whether you really, really want something, when it’s not something you can realistically trial beforehand?

6 thoughts on “Yes, you can.

  • Reply krantcents March 2, 2012 at 09:59

    I hate people who will just complain and never do something about it. I try to stay away from those people. Unless they are willing to take action, they will never find what they are looking for.

  • Reply BrokeElizabeth March 2, 2012 at 12:47

    I get soooo frustrated by people that disregard good advice, and continue to complain. They bring you down, and eventually it’s in your best interest to discontinue that relationship. It’s fairly easy to do when your ‘relationship’ is of the blogger-reader variety (as I’ve learned today) but can be incredibly painful with friends and family in real life.

  • Reply Two Degrees March 2, 2012 at 17:14

    When I was still in Toronto, I had a student who drove me absolutely bonkers. A brilliant kid in Grade 11 who got kicked out of the Gifted program a few years ago. Failing quite a lot of his classes but always assured himself he was doing alright.

    He was in such denial about the state of things that I got terribly pissed one day and say to him, “Let’s play time machine. Speed up to June 2013. You’re standing at the graduation ceremony – are you going to be graduating or sitting in the crowd, watching your classmates leave you. Come September, you’re surrounded by kids one year younger than you.” I was just angry and frustrated with him I nearly cried. I told him he was likely going to fail and that he was living in a dream. He looked at me and didn’t say anything.

    Since then it’s been a turning point. He’s started working harder and he’s stopped blatantly lying to himself and everyone around him. He was sad to see me leave the city for another job. It wasn’t a former intervention by any means, but sometimes you have to be frank and to the point, and have them realize that you are clearly upset at them before they realize how bad a situation they are in.

  • Reply cantaloupe March 2, 2012 at 23:14

    I saw a guru in India. He tried to sell me magical stones and said my karma would be bad if I didn’t buy them. India is one big con job. I refuse to perpetuate the myth of it being beautiful or magical or mystical or hell, even historical. It’s just a con job run by uneducated and insanely poor beggars. Which I don’t blame them for, I would be the same in their situation, but as a tourist, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

    The way you decide to do things that cannot be trialed is just to do them. And then you can tell amazing stories about it, even if it ends up being a total fail like my trip to India was.

  • Reply My money, my life March 3, 2012 at 08:31

    Yepp. I can get into the complaining trap without doing anything to ameliorate the situation (althought I try really hard to avoid doing this), and I definitely get frustrated at my friends who do the same thing. You’re right, sometimes deep down people just don’t want to change, or at least not enough. Then complaining about it becomes an outlet, an escape from reality. I haev friend who is always super negative about her job. She is bitter, whiny, and sour. We talk about other job ideas, but for her it’s always this amorphous thing like “yeah, someday I’ll make some actual efforts and get out of my current situation, but not today, today I’d like to bitch about how terrible my job is”. At first I tried to help her by suggesting many other areas that she may be able to transition into, but since I realized that she won’t act any time soon, I just listen politely and nod. Nobody can force her to change unless she is ready to.

  • Reply The long road to reaching your goals | Musings of an Abstract Aucklander March 11, 2012 at 11:12

    […] crises. For those of you with concrete and definite goals, though … push past the initial doubts and surge of fear. Nothing worth having comes easy, and if you really, truly want to make something happen, I promise […]

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