It's Always Something

Let’s say you have some big goal that you’d like to achieve, a splendid dream that keeps tugging at your heart. But you’ve been holding back because it’s an oversized ambition and quite challenging. You keep telling yourself, “Not now. Not yet. This isn’t the right time.”

That’s so much bull.

Most likely you’re letting circumstance manage you instead of you managing the circumstances.

We can always find a reason to stall, a way to rationalize waiting rather than pursuing our big ambitions. We get very creative in conning ourselves:

“There’s just too much uncertainty right now.”

“I’m down in my back.”

“Interest rates are too high.”

“I should wait until my kids (a) start school, or (b) get out of school, or (c) get married.”

“I don’t have enough (a) money, or (b) connections, or (c) knowhow, or (d) time,” etc.

Sure, you can point to constraints, limitations, obstacles—a hundred reasons to delay. To use Gilda Radner’s line from Saturday Night Live, “It’s always something.” Conditions are virtually never perfect, and excuses come easy. So you persuade yourself that you’re using good judgement. Maybe you even pat yourself on the back for making personal sacrifices. But this is how your big dream bites the dust.

Stop for a minute and look at this from a different angle.

You’re constantly dealing with situations that hit you at a bad or inopportune time. Problems come along and you handle them because, well, you have to. You have no choice! That’s just life. So you rise to the occasion—you make things work! Likewise, opportunities sometimes pop up unexpectedly, not necessarily at the best time for you, but you seize the moment.

Frankly, you’re good at this. For decades you’ve dealt successfully with what life has thrown at you. So go ahead…throw that big goal at yourself! You can handle it. Just begin the pursuit and be open to the power of the Unseen Forces. As Johann Wolfgang Goethe famously said:

“The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred…unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.”

This may be the best possible moment to pursue your dream. Just because you think circumstances might be more favorable in the future doesn’t mean they will.

As I write in the you² handbook, “Make your move before you’re ready!”