In 2018 Nike celebrated thirty years of their “Just Do It” slogan. Those three words if acted upon can change a person’s life.
I remember years ago I was wearing a hole in the stair carpet, up and down, up and down. I was a student living at home attempting to write yet another assignment. My office was my bedroom I spent more time on the staircase. I was thinking about what I could write, I was thinking about all the reasons not to write it I had to go downstairs to the kitchen to get something to eat, I then had to go back to the kitchen to get something to drink. I had to go downstairs to ask my mother something incidental. After returning upstairs I had to go downstairs to share some of my ideas for the assignment with my father. Once I’d finished my lengthy narrative with many huffs and puffs, my father said through gritted teeth, “For God’s sake, just do it.”
I know I am not alone. How many of us talk about doing something, plan on doing it, further discuss doing it, review plans to do it, have reason for not doing it.
These can include:
· It’s not the right time
· Too busy
· Not fit enough
· Don’t have enough money
· Waiting on someone else
· It’s too hot
· It’s too cold
· Too tired
These are just a few of the reasons we come up with to avoid doing something. I hear myself using them and I hear clients in the counselling room use them too. The emotion behind all of these excuses is usually fear, fear of failure.
The truth is we may fail but what if we succeed! We’ll never know unless we “just do it”.
After many distractions I’m please to say I did do it and the result was a Master’s Degree. Something at times I thought was not possible. If we’d spent the last thirty years just doing it I wonder what our lives would look like now.
As we go head first into 2019 my hope is we can make this a great year, and remember actions often speak louder than words. The three words that can change our lives are “Just Do It.”
Happy New Year Everyone!
