The Difference Between

and Absolutely Deciding

To Do That Same Thing

 

We've all experienced this. You try to open a bottle of pickles and you can't get it to move. Then you get a little mad and you try harder -- but it still doesn't open. Finally, you say, "There's no way I'm going to let this little pickle bottle defeat me." Moments later the bottle is open. Did you wrap the lid in a towel? Did you wash it in hot water? Did you get a big wrench? The main thing is, you got the job done.

 

Or you can't find your cell phone. You've checked all the familiar places and it just isn't there. You check the car. Then you call it and run through the house trying to hear its ring. Finally you say, "This is ridiculous. I have to locate this phone!"

 

Some people give up on the pickles. I'm sure some jars have ended up in the garbage. And a lot of cell phones lie undiscovered for days on end.

 

An over-the-top vow of Absolute Determination makes an incredible difference. You strain to remember when you last used your phone and somehow your brain comes through. You begin to reconstruct a memory that never really existed before. "Let's see, I remember making a hard left turn and there was a mysterious thunk." Sure enough, your phone is wedged between the front seat and the right door. You walk right to it.

 

I go through a stressful exercise every year around IRS time. My travel receipts have been collected in envelopes and stacked in little piles around the house for a full year. They have to be posted to my travel logs before my bookkeeper can finish her expenses ledger. I've got cash and credit card receipts, and some are difficult to read because they were printed on light sensitive paper. I should have posted them day by day as the expenses were happening!

 

In January I tell everyone I'm going to get those expenses compiled early this year. That's my true intent, but life gets in the way. I watch TV when I ought to be tending to this. I work on emails, play golf, weed my back yard, and chat on the phone. Almost anything takes priority because I'm not committed to posting these things. It's just not something I want to do.

 

Around the end of March I finally realize I have no choice. April 15th is right around the corner and it's going to take about six hours to organize and post my 1,000 receipts. Shortly thereafter the project is complete and the dread is over. All it took was an Absolute Decision and a True Commitment.

 

 

It sounds so simple.

 

A person who won't put a Fast Track Success Pack on his credit card is still Uncommitted. There's no denying it. A person who doesn't want to start with his friends is still quite a distance from a True Commitment. A person who balks at going on Triple-A is only part way into EcoQuest. He hasn't made his Absolute Decision yet!

 

Won'ts and don'ts are indicators of Indecision and Non-commitment.

 

A really Committed person can't stop himself from telling the world about EcoQuest, and his enthusiasm becomes contagious.