As part of a Toastmasters™ speech I gave one time, I quoted Adolf Hitler. That alone was probably shocking to the audience. Even more so is what he once said: “How fortunate for leaders that men do not think.”
Before you laugh too hard, ladies, I believe he was speaking about people in general, not just us males. You see, I truly believe that he was right. Most people never make it a priority in their schedules to set aside time to think. Just think. Think about what they want to become, what they want to do, what they want to have in life.
As people who want success, you should choose to be different than the masses. You see, the masses go through life from one task to another, checking off their boxes with gusto – never stopping long enough to think whether the tasks they are doing are the right tasks to help them succeed in life.
As I closed my speech, I mentioned that one component of “How to Succeed – at Anything in Life” (the name of my speech) was to “plan your work and work your plan.” When I asked the audience to raise their hands if they had heard that before, everyone raised their hands. Then I said, “…but I bet you never heard the rest of that saying – because I just created it two days ago!”
I went on to say that, yes, you do need to plan your work and work your plan; however, two qualifiers were needed to improve greatly your chances of success.
First, I feel that you need to have a strong Sense of Urgency. If you are lacking that, you will find yourself meandering through life. You may find yourself saying something like, “Life will be great when my ship comes in one day.” That virtually never happens. You need to be on purpose – urgently – with your life, or else little to nothing will happen.
Second, planning your work and working your plan is virtually guaranteed to fail – if you do it in a vacuum. You need Accountability in your life to succeed greatly. Look, we are all human. As such, we tend to take the path of least resistance. We say things to ourselves like, “I don’t need a stinking Accountability Partner! I can do this all by myself!”
Until we don’t.
It is very easy to accept excuses from ourselves about why we are not meeting new people, making more calls, doing more follow ups, or more personal development. That is where Accountability Partners come in. They can ask great questions like, “Congratulations on hitting your goal of ______; but, is that the correct goal that you need to be setting to accomplish your ultimate success?” Accountability helps us do what it is we truly should be doing (and want to be doing) anyway. With it, many achievements are made; without it, rarely anything of value ever is.
So my challenge for you today is this: set aside time in your calendar to Think. Just think. Every day. About whatever it is that God puts on your heart that day, as you listen to Him to guide your thoughts and actions.
Go forth and think…and then take action with Urgency and Accountability toward making your dreams come true. I believe in you!
