Know The Game Before You Play

There's nothing worse than waking up one day, reflecting back and realizing that all you've been doing is calculating, and waiting in expectation for your life to show up. Or to wake up and see that really, all you had to do was keep showing up consistently for a little while longer in level 3, where by now you'd be past level 6. 

These kind of things happen because we get into analysis paralysis, afraid to make mistakes, afraid to lose or destroy the things we love. So yea, the logic there: "just don't do them" is sound -- technically. But that choice of not doing them gets you the result you weren't wanting: delay. So instead of protecting the things you want, those things get neglected. Because what you're telling your brain now is, "I'm not going to even try for the life I want." You're programming your brain that it's not even worth the effort to try. While it's true that you can't play Chess, Monopoly or Catan, without knowing the rules, you can still play the game if you have questions about strategy. Playing the game with questions? It's probably the best way to play. Because instead of hoarding your skills to the point of overwhelm, creating false starts in your endeavors, you're working with your mental edge, your ability to problem-solve in real time, not just conceptually or theoretically. 

That being said, consumption is required to learn, but it isn't the end all of playing a game. Consumption assists you, when learning something new, maintaining your edge, nourishing your skillsets. But if implementation and application are missing, you're setting yourself up not just for frustration, but are actually lowering your capacity of output. Instead of doing more with what you learn, you turn yourself into a warehouse of knowledge, with a plethora of things you could be pursuing and doing, if you can create a rhythm around consumption and implementation. Keyword: "rhythm". 

If you're someone, who like me, has struggled with the "going for it" factor around your dreams and lifestyle and have anxiety that comes up around doing it. Procrastination and delay that come in to sabotage it -- you have an unbalanced scale of too much consumption with not enough implementation. Or sometimes, that thing you're trying to do really is not for you, or you could be in a season of needing deep rest. There's no reason to force it, just discern that for yourself. What I'm talking about is recognizing the patterns around the defining question for your life: what do you want?

I'm certain, it's not a life of sitting on the sidelines, anxiously waiting your turn to go run through a cornfield. Just make sure you know the map of the land so you don't launch yourself off a cliff. That's what I mean by saying, "know the game before you play." Do you have the map, the general parameters? Great, now go, do, be. Do what you want.  If this is something that still trips you up, here's how you can make it simple. Any desire that requires you to work and earn your way to receive it is a healthy want. Anything that requires you to get your feet on the ground and your head in the game is free for you to pursue. Just don't harm anyone in the process, especially yourself. Remember, Job One. 

-B