Ordinary Brilliance

It takes ONE MINUTE to read this mini- newsletter on how to use your "ordinary brilliance"

to discover the secrets of solving life & business challenges.
 

How To Plow The Field Of Your Life

There’s an old Irish saying: “You can’t plow a field by turning it over in your mind.”

As a coach, I love this quote. Yes, we do need to turn things over in our minds, yet if this is all we do, we won’t get anything done, we won’t change anything and we’ll make no progress.

I have a friend who lives as though he has no expiration date. He is a master at mulling things over, thinking things through, before taking action. While a thoughtful guy, he’s also a cautious guy. Maybe a little too cautious.

He’s had the intention of changing his career for as long as I’ve known him.And while he’s done some research and gathered some information, its only made the mulling over process longer and more complex. He’s not only plowed a field in his mind, he’s sowed the back forty with good intentions.

Sometimes the prescription for success is rolling up your sleeves and simply taking action.

So what field have you been turning over in your mind, and not getting to the actual plowing?

Some folks have a related, but different, sort of challenge: they are plowing too many fields at once.I recently met a business owner who is a few years into her endeavor. She’s having a hard time defining her core market and consequently has been pursuing whatever interesting group of customers shows up. She’s now got a lot of product lines and a smattering of customers. Not surprisingly, her business is floundering.

She’s plowing too many fields.

Okay, so enough with the field analogy. But I hope you get my point. As the famous lines from Ecclesiastes say: “…There is a time to reap and a time to sow.” Where in your life is it time to start sowing so you can start reaping?

 

© 2009 Anne Alexander, all rights reserved in all media