“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”  — Theodore Roosevelt

Every time I read that I can almost feel the chills.  “…at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”  That is so powerful, inspiring, and motivating.

Two of my favorite articles here on The Rat Race Trap are Develop the Courage to Take Risks and 17 Ways to Achieve Heroic Goals.  Underlying both of those articles is the idea of thinking big.  Recently I read a short little book called The Think Big Manifesto by Michael Port and it got me pondering the subject again.  The book did not enthrall me, but I like what his is trying to do over at The Think Big Revolution.

In this article I’m going to share some of my thoughts and some of Michael’s thoughts with you.

“We are the biggest obstacle that stands in the way of our doing big things in the world.  We are our own worst enemies.”  –Michael Port

Small Thoughts

You don’t need a guru to tell you how to start thinking big.  You just need to start doing. it.  It’s not hard to think big.  It’s only hard to stop thinking small.  I think we all struggle with it every day.  I know that I do, but I’m determined to kill the small thoughts that are holding me back.  Are you?

Some small thoughts we think:

1. I’m not.
2. I don’t.
3. I can’t.
4. I’ll try.
5. I don’t have time.
6. I don’t have the energy.
7. I’m only one person.
8. Pop culture.
9. Television.
10. People magazine.
11. Corporate culture.
12. Intolerance.
13. Our past determines our future.
14. We are never enough.
15. For every winner there is a loser.

Big Thoughts

“Small thoughts fear the future.  Big thoughts are the future.”  –Michael Port

We will rise no higher than we think and if we want to achieve big things, we better stop thinking small and start thinking big.

“The time has come.  We cannot wait anymore.  For years we have hidden behind our own small thoughts or let ourselves be held back by other small thinking people who don’t believe in us.  Worse still, we have been rejected as marginal, unrealistic, dreamers, idealists, maybe even delusional.  Family, friends, colleagues and others (not to mention our own selves) have tried to negate us, eliminate us, and silence us.  We will not stand for it anymore.”  –Michael Port

Big thoughts are different things to different people and that’s perfectly OK.  Being realistic is OK and is not small thinking as long as it is expansive and well outside your comfort zone.  Starting my own business is a big thought to me.  That might be a small thought for someone else.

Here are examples of big thoughts for you to think about.

1. Build your own business.
2. Change jobs.
3. Change careers.
4. Go back to school.
5. Come out of the closet.
6. End relationships with those who hold you back.
7. Run a marathon.
8. Follow your dream in the arts.

What now?

“There is NO right FIRST STEP and no last step.  To begin to think big is ORGANIC.  Once you start it will grow like the seashell, your thoughts EXPANDING ever upward and outward.”  –Michael Port

There is an abundance of solutions, we only need to start thinking and acting big to create them.  You are abundant.

“We are are own pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.”  –Kim George

Get high on life.  If you are comfortable and safe you are thinking small.  If you are uncomfortable and excited you are thinking big.

You can’t do things perfectly.  Trying to do things perfectly will guarantee you will never do them.  Just go for it.  Modify along the way.  The best planning technique in existence is to modify as you experience.

“Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”  –Japanese proverb

Make promises to yourself and others and keep them.  There is no better way to develop a sense of personal integrity and self-esteem.  If you aren’t going to do it then say so and say why.  Be honest.  I tell people no all the time and yet they seem to respect me and return.  Making promises you can’t or won’t keep makes you small in their eyes and more importantly in your own eyes.

Promise something big and uncomfortable.  Make it public.  It’s almost a guarantee of success.  Promise your readers you are going to lose 30 pounds in three months and promise them weekly updates.  You will lose 30 pounds in three months.

“We will make promises.  Big promises.  Promises hard to fulfill.  Yet we will – fulfill.”  –Michael Port

Blow the lid off of yourself and do something big.  Live each day as if it is your last but look forward to living forever.  I don’t plan on living forever, but I believe that human near-immortality is on the horizon.  I am thinking big about long life.

As an eighteen year-old freedom lover, I was excited about what I heard come out of Ronald Reagan’s mouth in ‘79 – ‘80.  By 1984 he had shown he was just another disappointing politician who would compromise away principles and I decided to ignore politics and pursue freedom some other way.  Within a few years I had been totally swallowed up by the rat race.

Today I read the following quote by him and found it beautiful and appropriate.

“Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.” –Ronald Reagan

Get Free Updates to The Rat Race Trap by Email here or via a reader in the top left sidebar.  I would love to have you on board.

It is in our moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.  –Anthony Robbins

What is the key to a successful life?  Is there a single key?  Probably not, but I believe there is a primary decision you can make from which everything else flows.  In that sense this decision is the primary key to a successful life.  Without this key you will not succeed in creating the life you want for yourself.  This decision is the decision think or to avoid thinking.  You can choose to focus or to avoid focusing.  You can choose to be aware or to avoid awareness. You can choose to understand or to avoid understanding.  All of these are just variations of the fundament choice to think or not to think.

Furthermore, as I live my life, I have the choice to operate mindfully or mindlessly or anywhere between.  I am accountable in any issue for the level of awareness I select.  To think is an act of choice; so is to avoid thinking, and I am the cause of that choice. –Nathaniel Branden

I am not suggesting one should maintain a laser-like focus all day every day.  That is an extremely unhealthy choice that will eventually destroy your mind.  Trust me, I know.  I am a shining example of how to mess yourself up by thinking non-stop eighteen hours a day.  It is completely debilitating.  Achieving a balanced and healthy mind and body requires that you take some time to relax and meditate.  Sometimes you just need to be present and let things flow through your mind without analyzing them.

What I am suggesting though, is that you must make the choice to maintain awareness at all times as to how and when your active and focused thinking is required.  That is your fundamental choice. Regardless of the circumstances you find yourself in, you cannot abdicate the responsibility of thinking.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.  –George Bernard Shaw

The circumstances you find yourself in at the present moment are are result of the total accumulated consequences of every decision you have ever made.  No matter what has happened to you via external forces, you chose to think or not to think and to act or to avoid acting on those thoughts.  You cannot separate your current life from your prior choices.

Circumstances hell! I make circumstances! –Bruce Lee

Please don’t twist this into some categorical pissing match.  Obviously if you are smashed by a Tsunami on a Thai beach, you didn’t really do anything to contribute to that (other than possibly choosing to go to the beach).  But you are responsible for choosing to think and for your actions once the water hits.  Those choices make the difference between life and death.

You have made choices up to this point in your life that either position you to survive or not.  Are you trim and healthy or are you obese and ill?  Are you able to swim or not?  If you are near water you must accept the responsibility that you chose to go near water and that something may happen that causes you to end up in that water.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well. –Jack London

What about things like cancer?  You must accept that choices you have made, such as your diet, have contributed to that disease.   You thus chose, directly or by abdication, the result you now see.  You are not a victim of circumstances.  You created the self you now see.

Most Decisions are Not Real Decisions

You cannot simply create a wish list and say you have made some decisions.  Saying you want to lose 20 pounds is not a decision, it is a wish.  Saying you want to be rich is not a decision, it is a wish.  Saying you want go to medical school and become a heart surgeon is not a decision, it is a wish.  Saying you are planning to do x is not a decision, it is just talking about wishes instead of of doing something to make them happen.

“I will lose 20 pounds in the next 4 months.”
“I will make five million dollars in the next two years.”
“I will go to medical school and then become a heart surgeon.”

Those are real decisions that create an explicit obligation to act.  You cannot say “I will lose twenty pounds in the next four months.” and then sit and wait for the pounds to disappear.

Making a true decision means committing to achieving a result, and then cutting yourself off from any other possibility.  –Anthony Robbins

A Real Decision Means You Have Taken Action

A real decision is basically an action.  It is the choice to act upon your wants, needs, or desires.  If you don’t take a follow up action, you haven’t really made a decision.  You are just performing mental gymnastics.  A real decision means you are committed to taking the next action.

My whole life changed in just one day – the day I determined not just what I’d like to have in my life or what I wanted to become, but when I decided who and what I was committed to having and being in my life. –Anthony Robbins

Once you have made a decision, you should take immediate action.  Don’t know what to do?  Do something, anything, no matter how small.  In fact, intentionally make it small so you can complete it and celebrate it immediately.  Make it so easy that you would feel guilty by not doing it immediately.  Then celebrate and tell yourself you have moved part way to your goal.  Make a big deal about it and create a lot of positive energy and emotion that your brain will automatically associate with moving towards your goal.  You have then started a feedback loop that will carry you to your target.

Are there areas in your life where you continually postpone making decisions?  Have you given up on a goal because you didn’t get the result you wanted the first time? …  Often times, the hardest step in achieving anything in your life is making the decision to do something about it now.  Think about some areas of your life that have been stalled because a decision needs to be made.  Could you make that decision now?  –Jonathan Wells – Advanced Life Skills

Make Frequent Decisions

You need to practice your decision making.  The more you do the better you get.  Build the habit of making quick decisions and taking immediate decisive action.  When you make a decision you feel powerful and energetic.  Try it.  The more decisions you make the better you feel.  Successful people make decisions.  Unsuccessful people go with the flow.

Think about this.  Let’s say the average person makes one significant decision a month.  What if you made one significant decision a week?  You would be getting the life experience of four months in one each one of your months.  What if you made one significant decision a day?  You would be getting the average life experience of 30 months in each of your one months.  This practice will rocket your forward.

You can sit around and wait for life to happen to you, or you can make life happen for you.

Learn From Your Failures

I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward. –Thomas Edison

What about all those months of experience I describe above?  Well many of them will be “wrong attempts” as Thomas Edison would say.  So what?  That is a step forward.  Fail often and fail quickly.  Pick yourself up and try again.

People fail to make decisions because they are afraid of the unknown.  They are afraid of what might happen.  They are afraid of life.  I choose not to be afraid of life but to experience it.  How about you?  What do you choose?  It’s up to you.  You can be a victim or you can be an owner.  In either case you create the life you get.

Keep the “How” Flexible

Cultivate the art of flexibility.  When you make a decision you don’t have to worry about how you are going to accomplish whatever you have decided.  The important part is deciding to take action and being committed to achieving that which you have decided.  Stay focused on the what.  You can figure out the how as you go along.

Life gives you various experiences that result from external forces.  The choice you made about how to do something might no longer be valid.  It might have been the wrong how to start with.  Be constantly aware and change your approach and keep changing it until you find something that works.  Most people stop when they fail the first time.  Most of the rest stop after they fail the tenth time.  The truly great never stop until they find a way.  There is always a way and your can find it if you are willing to continually change your approach.

Enjoy Making Decisions

In any moment the decision you make can change the course of your life forever.  –Anthony Robbins

Isn’t that a powerful thought?  Making decision after decision after decision is a trip.  You will get high on life.  It creates an empowering feeling in you because you are taking control of your life instead of letting life happen to you.  Don’t take my word for.  Try it for yourself.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.  –Helen Keller

Just writing this article has pumped me up.  I hope you are pumped up too.  I hope that you will make some vital decisions about your life right now.  Why don’t you make one decision right now and let me know what that decision was in the comments below.

Know that it is your decisions, and not your conditions, that determine your destiny.  –Anthony Robbins.

What do you think?  Leave a comment below.  Subscribe to The Rat Race Trap by Email here or to a reader in the top left sidebar.  I would love to have you aboard.