If you set out to build a new house in five years, it will take you five years.
If you set out to build it in six months, it will take you six months.
Any task takes the time allotted.
Here’s an example. I was recently in
the office the day before a long business trip. I had way too much to do and not enough time to do it. I sat down at my desk in the morning with the same number of hours in the day as I have any other day but with far more on my plate than I could accomplish. By the time I left the office at the end of the day, everything was complete.
Why? Why did I get three times more done on this particular day then on any other day?
Because I had to.
When you have to do something you do it. The reason most people don’t exercise enough is because they “don’t have time” but if you get a phone call from the school and you have to pick up your sick daughter and take her to the doctor, you do it. It takes two hours out of your day but by tomorrow that missing two hours has dissolved into your day and you never miss it.
So here’s the question.
Do you want to succeed? Do you want to get to the next level? Do you want to live your ideal life filled with purpose, wealth, happiness and ultimate fulfillment? (OK, that’s three questions.)
Then what are you doing today to make that happen? Is there a deadline set? If not, it will always be a dream. If so, then you will achieve it. If you have already identified your goals and your ideal life then set a deadline for when you want to achieve it. When you do you will be halfway there because the things that you need to get there will simply show up.
Things like motivation and willpower and opportunities and solutions.
The things that you fear will no longer be insurmountable obstacles but rather challenges that you will simply overcome in order to meet the deadline for your dream.
So when is it? When is your deadline for arriving?
I am, on a small scale, in fact, using this tactic right now. Normally it takes me 45 minutes to write the first draft of a blog post. However, I’ve been interrupted by phone calls and visitors the past two hours and my work day is nearly over. Instead of pushing my writing off until tomorrow, I gave myself a deadline. Fifteen minutes. I said out loud, “I will complete this blog post draft in fifteen minutes.” It’s absurd because it takes much longer to write my first draft.
Guess what? Done.
Thirty minutes of my life saved. How do you think Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump and Richard Branson get so much done in the same 24 hours that you and I have?
They get it done.