I’d heard the phrase, Yesterday is Gone and Tomorrow is Never Promised.
I’d heard, Someday is Today, and supported many campaigns that used this slogan.
One day it hit me though, that today, is tomorrow.
We have the ability to change our futures. That’s crazy if you think about it. We are our own Genies in our own bottles. Our Genie is our choice, and our bottle is our life.
Even better than the standard three wishes Genies are known to grant, our wish list is unlimited.
The problem many of us have is thinking that our actions today are too small to make an impact or change anything. We think, we must go HAM or why even bother?
- What’s one salad going to do?
- What’s 15 minutes of walking going to do?
- What’s 10 minutes earlier on the alarm going to do?
- What’s an hour a day without electronics going to do?
- What’s a sober Saturday night going to do?
When we look at it that way, it does seem pretty useless. And it will be, if the action is only done ONCE. The decision of today, regardless of how small, will compound and grow into CHANGE over time.
Sometimes the choice just needs to be to keep showing up every day.
When new members would join CrossFit, I was often asked, “how long does it take someone to do that?” as they pointed at the guy doing handstand push-ups or the girl doing pull ups in the corner.
“It depends” was my standard response.
The dependency was always on one factor, the decision to keep showing up every day.
Back in 2005 when I started working for TWC, I almost quit. I came home every night and cried at the dinner table because I was “so stupid.” I was the slowest person in my training class and for the life of me I couldn’t make sense of the billing system.
By the grace of God, I made the decision to keep going and show up every day.
Slowly, painfully, a little tiny bit at a time, information started coming together. Patterns starting showing up. Processes started making sense, and the billing system eventually became my bitch.
If I had quit, I would have returned to the service industry. I can guarantee you that the following 12+ years would have looked very different for me.
It’s amazing, that a DAILY DECISION, the present day’s YES I will go or NO I will not, so drastically changed my future. I truly didn’t see the point in showing up at first, I was convinced I’d never “get it” and I truly didn’t think it was worth it. Every day, every single day, the decisions we make, roll over into our future. This is an unavoidable fact.
It is so important that regardless of how big or small the decision is, it is conducive with the wishes of our future.
Today, is both the present and the future. It’s like simultaneously living in two worlds at the same time.
Sometimes the choices affect our immediate future. If I make the choice not to drink Saturday night, I will not have a hangover on Sunday morning.
That scenario doesn’t work the same as, if I eat this salad today, I will be in shape tomorrow.
When the result is immediate we have the tendency to choose the behavior that supports the result. When the result is not immediate, we have the tendency to choose a behavior that does not support the outcome we want.
The later of the two, is a lack of faith.
My biggest achievements have been made by “trusting the process” and “continuing to show up every day, no matter what.” And most importantly, by having faith.
Faith it until you make it, and you may just find yourself sitting in a book shop in Texas, realizing your faith got you to exactly where you wanted to be ❤️
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1
May God bless and protect our country and everyone reading.
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Another excellent article! Thank you 😎