Just Do It!

Eighty percent of success is just showing up.
Woody Allen

Sometimes writing this blog is easy. A subject just pops up in my mind and the post is written long before I sit down at the keyboard. Sometimes I stumble across some information that is so important I just have to pass it on. Sometimes I have nothing to say or I just don’t feel like writing. On those days, because I believe what I am doing is useful, I keep on looking until I find something I hope is of value. Sometimes I am surprised to discover what I thought was not all that special gets me an email from a friend expressing their appreciation. Sometimes a piece I considered especially valuable elicits no response whatsoever. I am learning the truth of Woody Allen’s famous axiom. Sometimes the hardest part of this job is just sitting down and doing it. I think that this is probably true of just about any aspect of money management from escaping the great American debt trap to managing a substantial investment portfolio. It is also true in areas where I consistently fail, like weight loss.

Every job has a hard part, a part that requires us to “show up” even when we don’t feel like it. Perhaps, if you are extroverted schmoozing with your customers is the easy part of your job. Perhaps, actually doing the work is hard. For an introvert, her art is everything. This person would find customers an inconvenience and an interruption. I have a friend who loves his ministry, but loathes fundraising. If he doesn’t make those phone calls, write those letters, and visit churches, he can’t do what he does so well for the Lord. I wish there was an easier way, but there isn’t. When fundraising needs to be done, he just does it.

So no matter where you find yourself along the road to financial freedom. Just get up this morning and do what needs to be done.

Let me end with a quote from “The Invitation,” a poem attributed to Oriah Mountain Dreamer that quite often appears on inspirational or motivational websites.

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.