Before You Set Out For A New Destination, Don’t Forget To Check Your Boat First..!

"Gordon Bryan", "The Great Gordino",
Written by gordino

Before you set out for a new destination on life’s ocean, don’t forget to check the state of your boat first!

Now, I will admit, that’s quite a lot of text for a ‘quote image’ – quite a mouthful rather than something that slips off the tongue. When the picture was taken, I knew I’d be using it to say something along those lines, and since I also knew I’d be expanding on it with an article, I ended up just going with the whole shebang!

I think the words and the picture make a good point as a combination, but let’s take a closer look…

I’m a big believer, a massive believer in fact, that we can take our lives in any direction we choose, with choice being the important element. If we look around at our current circumstances, we can look back and see choices we made that led to our current situation.

We might have to look a long way back, and we might not like facing up to it, but it’s true nonetheless. With that being so, then it’s irrefutable logic that by making different choices we can create different circumstances.

That may sound glib, that it’s too simplistic, and while the principle *is* simple, it’s not always easy to do it in real life, that’s clear. Sometimes it can involve some real hardship, and that’s not to be dismissed. As I say often, life isn’t always rainbows and sequins.

While accepting that it might be hard, let’s not forget that it also might *not* be hard! It may be a whole lot easier than we ever thought, and the only way to find out is to just get on with it!

I’ve written for many years that if we want to do something in life, why shouldn’t we just do it? If we want to change something, why shouldn’t we just change it?

I think we should just do the things we want, we should follow our passions, our joys, the things that make our souls feel alive!

What we shouldn’t do though, is set out willy nilly, without a plan, and this is where the picture of the knackered boat comes in…

Once you’ve decided to make a change, to take your life somewhere new, you need to answer some questions, which will set you up before you cast off. The boat in the picture is not going to get anyone anywhere anytime soon, no matter how strong the desire might be, so to make sure the boat doesn’t represent *you* and your goals, here are the questions –

1. What is your destination, your goal, exactly? Not vaguely, not roughly, but exactly? When any boat sets out on the ocean, it never sets out to go ‘over there’ somewhere – the destination is clear.

2. Why do you want it? Do you really want it at all? Is it goal that others are imposed on you, or you think they will like? You need to know the deep down reason behind you wanting the goal.

3. Why haven’t you got there already? It could be that your boat is as dodgy looking as the one in the picture! Is it because you don’t have the skills? Or you’ve been too lazy? Or bad with your time management? Skills can be learnt, including time management and motivation upkeep and seeing to these elements can be likened to fixing the holes in the boat. Leave the holes there, and you can imagine what will happen!

4. What’s the plan? You need to know the next step you have to take, which for the boat would mean the first setting of the rudder (although as previously mentioned, the rudder needs some work first!)

So, life has a mass of opportunities to offer, and it’s up to us to choose. Once we’ve done that, we need to check that we are ready before we set off. Don’t take forever doing it mind you! Don’t get stuck in the ‘paralysis by analysis’ mode where you try and get everything right before you start, but *do* make sure you have got as many of the basics in place as you can, and then off you go!

"Gordon Bryan", "The Great Gordino",

Ok, I’d love to hear what you think as ever – I love the feedback!

‘Til Next Time,
Health & happiness,
Gordon
P.S. This is the exact kind of issue I cover in my Transform Your Life Now coaching programme. Why not go and take a look, and you can also grab my free 8  step goal achievement formula!




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Leave a Reply to Irena X

4 Comments

  • Great post, we often fail to take a reality check before running after a shiny object or a goal that we think we “should” be going for rather than one we really need or want. Thanks for sharing!