2014 Week 18: Mind the Gap

Although “Keep calm and ____ (insert just about anything here)” is perhaps the most touted Brit phrase these days, the one I’ve been thinking about lately is the ever famous Mind the Gap.

Specifically I’ve been pondering the gap between who I am, and who I want to be.  What resides here in this gap—the things that keep me from being exactly who I was designed to be at my fullest potential?  After some honest introspection here are a few of my answers:

• Distractions—it could be Facebook, reading, television, texting, surfing the web....  None of these are bad in and of themselves, but how often do these keep me from progressing towards bigger goals that matter?  I’ll be the first to admit—for me it’s TV.  (More to come on that later.)

• Perfectionism—how often do I wait for the “perfect” next step, as opposed to a possible next step? Sometimes I get frozen in analysis paralysis as I try to decipher EXACTLY how to move forward. 

• Laziness—who are we kidding, growth and change take work and sometimes I just don’t feel like putting forth the effort.

• Fear—behind every goal worth dreaming lies the fear that it will never be realized.  Sometimes it’s tough to actually take the risk, and move towards that which I desire.

• Discouragement—whereas fear may be based only in imagined failure, discouragement can arise directly from fact.  Perhaps I've tried and failed and tried and failed ad nauseam.   Sometimes getting off the mat is exhausting.

So can you relate to any of these gap dwellers?  I've battled them before, and undoubtedly I will face them again.  I did triumph over one of these this past week, I completely cancelled my tv, no basic channels or anything.  Yep, my biggest distraction yields only a blank screen these days—and to be honest, it’s been lovely. 

So to my gap dwellers I say this: 

• “I’m here to build something for the long term. Anything else is a distraction.” ~Mark Zuckerberg

• “Don’t let perfection get in the way of progress.” ~Tony Bombacino

• “Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.” ~Jules Renard

• "There are always two voices sounding in our ears: the voice of fear and the voice of confidence.  One is the clamor of the senses, the other is the whispering of the higher self.” ~Charles B. Newcomb

• “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly....” ~Theodore Roosevelt  (LOVE that one!)

Sometimes it just takes one step and this week I took one!  #Winning!  

34 Weeks left to Mind the Gap!