How do you choose the right path for you?
Often in your life you find yourself at a crossroads. Life may not be working out, or you are are not getting to that better place that you desire.
You’d like to make a change, but you’re not sure how to do it.
Sometimes you’re not quite at the fork in the road.
You want it so bad, you imagine it.
What do you do?
The choice can be heartbreaking.
Risk is uncomfortable; consequently, you’d like to find some sure way to know what will happen if you jump.
For sure, you don’t want to jump and burn. You want to land on your feet.
How do you evaluate the risk?
Maxim: No one can predict the future.
I’d like to say more about that, but to say more is to say less.
What you’d like to ask yourself is what you expect to gain by going down a particular path in terms of concrete change.
After all, you are contemplating a change because you want change in something – be it money, prestige, social good or personal awareness. If you are choosing to scale a mountain, what do you gain out of this? Endorsements? Prestige? A nice write-up in the paper? Money raised for a charity? Self-satisfaction?
Write that down so you can at least have a goal to reach.
Next, ask yourself if you have the skills or tools to go down that path. If you don’t have the skills, can you attain them in the time-frame you have chosen? Can you make the time? It would be no different than choosing which path to take when scaling a mountain. Without the right skills and tools, we are more likely to crash and burn.
For example, you’d like to communicate your message to the public. How will you do this? There are many roads up the mountain. A book in which a person can communicate through the power of words? Or visual media where a person communicates by virtue of personality? One has to know one’s self. How do you react on camera? Are you shy and reserved? Can you compete with others in the arena of screaming and yelling? Where do you excel? Because you do want to excel.
God gives us all gifts. Embrace those gifts.
It is a fallacy to believe that you can have all gifts or develop all gifts. Now, the human potential movement wants you to believe that this is so, but it is not so. Some people are ahead of you in a particular game. In which game are you ahead of the pack?
Preparation is everything for success. Jumping in just because you read about someone else jumping in is a mistake. Ask yourself if you have the skills to succeed. Remember, the media simplifies a person’s success. They don’t always tell you the backstory to that person’s rise to fame and glory; they often fail to relate that the person in question worked many, many years in a related profession which gave them the skills to succeed.
Finally, what do you want on your tombstone? This is an expression from the 60s. A more modern way of saying this is: What do you want your Wikipedia page to say? In fact, it may be helpful for you to write out your own Wikipedia page today on your digital device.
So, in summary, ask yourself what you want, whether you have the skills and what you want on your Wikipedia page.
Now, with that stated, and the path chosen, everything in your life must inexorably drive to that end point. There can be no turning back, no regrets, no wailing over spilt milk.
Commitment and resolve are key.
Cowboy Archer 