“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.” -Amelia Earhart
Nothing makes a decision to act more real than to make a public announcement about it.
I recently started a public countdown timer to the release of my new book, Draw Forth: the Stick Figure Strategist’s Toolkit for Hosting Your Own Visual Conversations, on Amazon.
As of right now, I have a little over 67 days to finish everything for it.
Every time I look at that countdown timer, two things happen:
1. I want a paper bag to breathe into, and
2. I get focused in a major way.
You see, that little countdown timer is me making a very public decision to act. Sure, I could not tell you that my book is going live on September 29th. And I could miss the date. Heck, I could even blatantly ignore that date and pretend that I always meant for my book to be a 2016 release. Nobody would know, right?
Except me. I would know. I would know that my decision to act and release my book was really more of a “wish” than something I truly wanted to do. A half-hearted wish at that.
Making a public declaration of my intention to act does two things:
1. It makes it incredibly real, and
2. It removes all doubt.
There’s no going back at this point. I am decided, and I’m watching the paper tigers around me crumple up and fall. It’s really quite remarkable, the tenacity and focus that spring forth when the decision to act is truly made.
And because the outcome for our decisions cannot truly be known, the process–the experience of taking action in the face of paper tigers–is worth everything.
Are you ready to decide to act? Grab your paper tiger fears, fold them into airplanes here, and let your actions soar!
I cannot wait to see what you draw forth,
