Just Blink

Now that you have decided to take full responsibility for ALL the things that happen in your life, here’s something to notice. No matter how old you currently are, you are going to wish you had begun this journey years ago. You’re probably thinking if you had found your starting point years ago, then today you would be where you wanted to be, right? I’ve got news for you: it doesn’t matter how old you are, you would still think that.

If you are eighteen, you would wish you would have started when you were fifteen. If you are twenty-five, you would wish you would have started when you were twenty. If you are forty, you would wish you would have started when you were thirty. If you are eighty, you would wish you would have started when you were seventy. It goes on and on the same way because we all have the “I Need It Now” syndrome.

What do we want? A better life. When do we want it? Now!

The passage of time is not what it seems. I believe in something I call “Just Blink.” Time really does go by fast. When you are living it, it goes by slowly, but when you look back, it happened in just the blink of an eye.

Think about this: I bet right now you can remember what your elementary school cafeteria looked like (hopefully you weren’t the kid eating the glue!). That was a long time ago, right? But it feels like time just flew by when you think about it. The same thing will happen for your future. Before you know it, it will be five years from today. What life will you be living? Just blink, and you will be in the future.

Let’s do a little experiment. Right now, think of an impending deadline coming up in your life. Something not too far away. Let’s do your next cell phone payment. That can’t be more than one month away. As you read this, “Just Blink,” and the next thing you know your cell phone payment will be due. When you get your mind around this concept of time, you’ll stop worrying about not having a specific thing now, because if you work properly, you will soon be at your goal.

When your cell phone bill actually does come around, I want you to use that as a trigger to say to yourself, “Wow, this Just Blink thing is real. I was just reading Arel’s blog and now I’m paying my bill.” The point of this is to reinforce that even though you probably don’t have exactly what you want right now, and it seems like there is a long journey to travel to get to it, literally, before you know it, you will reach your goal.

So get excited my friend, the time is now to start creating what you want.

Just for Fun:

Would you like to have some fun with this? I recommend taking a photo of yourself in a white t-shirt on your birthday every year. This way as the years go on, you can create a flip book to see how you have progressed over the years. (The reason you should wear a white t-shirt is so the clothes will be the same in the picture, and you can just see the progression of your facial characteristics and body type.) It’s a lot of fun—try it out.

Arel Moodie is widely known as America's Top Young Speaker. He has spoken to over 65,000 students in 39 states and 2 countries on the topics of student success, student leadership and student entrepreneurship. He is a leading authority on helping students of this generation succeed in school and in life. He is also the best selling author of the book Your Starting Point For Student Success. To find out more about Arel's book, go to www.startingpointbook.com. To find out more about Arel's speaking please go to www.arelmoodie.com.