Mark Gilroy

Bringing Books to Life!

The Most Important Step is the First Step (And Often the Hardest Step)

Get started! Take the first step.

The most important step is the first step.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Often for me – and perhaps you – the first step is the hardest.I am a very productive person and can work for hours without interruption. But only when I get started. Some days I start earlier than other days.

You have things you should do. Things you can do. Things you want to do. Things that will make your life better and improve the life of those around you. Things that will improve your self-esteem. Things that will make you healthier. Things that will improve your relationships. Things that will deepen your spiritual life. Things that will make you smarter and more interesting. Things that will help you fulfill a dream in your heart.

Things that maybe you’ve given up on because … well, because you never got started. You simply haven’t taken the first step.

One of my annual rituals is that the first time I go to a pool that has a high dive, I head straight there first. Why? I know it is harder to go head first off a ten or twelve-foot springboard every year and I want to serve notice up front – to no one else but me – that I can still do this.

What do you want to do today? This summer? Before the year is over? In the next decade? Before your life is over?

The most important step to get there, to do it, is the first step. Begin it. Be bold.

What one step can you take even today?

Improve Your Life By Improving Your Choices!

Improve your life by improving your choices

New Year – New You?

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.

William James

Happy New Year!

It’s time to put up a new wall calendar and it’s the season when our thoughts turn to goals and resolutions that will improve our lives. Advertisers love to remind us: new year, new you. External conditions matter. But internal conditions matter just as much.

The best way to improve your life, as it always has been, is to improve your choices.

I don’t know if the following choices qualify as goals or resolutions, but as I pondered on what makes life better, here are five choices I want to make this year.

1. let go of a grudge.

Life is too short to live in strife. Even if you have been done wrong and own a legitimate grievance … even if the person you have enmity with won’t reciprocate your desire for and attempts at reconciliation … forgive anyway. Let go of hurts, disagreements, and anger. Move on. Say goodbye to the stress and inner turmoil that rob you of joy. If you have a catalog of grudges, start with the easiest one to deal with and work your way toward to the toughest one. That will help you gain momentum and not get bogged down from the get-go.

2. go positive.

Cynicism, sarcasm, mistrust, and other forms of negativity are the prevailing zeitgeist of our age. Be different. Go against the grain. Dare to be considered strange. Look for the good in the world, in your friends and family and colleagues – and in your own life – and see if life isn’t miraculously better … even if nothing substantively changed. Maybe it isn’t “realistic” to ignore the bad, but it’s just as unrealistic to ignore the positive.

3. create or update a budget.

Money isn’t everything. Money shouldn’t rule your life. Money is a means, not an end. I agree. I agree. I agree. But nothing creates stress interpersonally and intrapersonally like money. Know what you make. Know what you are obligated to spend. Plan to sow seeds of grace through generosity and compassionate giving. Set aside something for the future. Refuse to go into debt. Figure out how much is left and enjoy what you can do with it, even if there are some things you can’t get that you thought you really needed. The peace of living within your means will easily outperform any sense of loss.

4. stimulate your mind.

Read a book. Memorize a passage of scripture or a poem or an important historical document – memorizing is almost a lost art! Go to a museum. Pick a topic you are curious about and study it throughout the year. A little mindless entertainment won’t kill you, but not challenging, exercising, and stimulating your thought life with excellence is a sure path to intellectual poverty.

5. get healthier.

I have a friend who claims that we don’t really have a system of healthcare but rather a system of sickness care. He breaks things down so simply that even I can understand the roadmap to better health. If you want to be healthier there are three simple choices to make: eat better; add more physical movement; handle stress. Diet, exercise, and mental health. This isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. It is about starting right where you are and doing better.

Are you ready for your best year ever? I can’t promise that. But I can promise that you can make this year the best it can be by making better choices. Your list may look a lot different than mine, but I’m guessing all of us have some ways we want to improve our lives.

What are you choosing to do this year?

Don’t Wait for the Perfect Time – Or You’ll Never Get Anything Done

Mark Gilroy blogs on not waiting for the perfect time to do something - otherwise you'll never get anything done.
When the clouds are full of water, it rains. When the wind blows down a tree, it lies where it falls. Don’t sit there watching the wind. Do your own work. Don’t stare at the clouds. Get on with your life.
Ecclesiastes 11:3-4 (The Message)

Investors know that timing is everything – but they also know that no one gets timing right all the time. So they preach that successful investing is achieved through consistency and diversity over time. When the sun shines. Even when it rains cats and dogs. Of course someone bought Apple stock at the right time and got rich – but Forrest Gump was a make-believe character. And none of the can’t-miss stock tips I’ve received have made me rich. (Though I may just be listening to the wrong people.)

One of my kids asked me when I knew I was ready to have kids. The answer was simple; when Lindsey, my first child was born. Nothing but the miracle of birth could have prepared me for fatherhood.

Business plans are great. Outlines are wonderful. Planning, pondering, preparing, predicting, and other forms of prognosticating on what is the best path to take are necessary for success. And there are better times to make a move than others. But if we wait for the perfect time – or until we think we know when the perfect time is – we’ll never act.

Phrases that show the importance of timing, like strike when the iron is hot, are insightful, but so is the simple adage that there is no time like the present.

In Aesop’s Fable of the ant and the grasshopper, the ant followed Solomon’s advise to not stare at the clouds but work – get on with your life. Consistency over time.

Marriage. Kids. New home. New city. New career. New workout program. New endeavor. New habit. New attitude. New mission. New you. Plan and ponder. But don’t kid yourself that you can measure every cause and effect to the point of knowing the perfect time to act and do.

The uncertainties of life and the Law of Unintended Consequences mean that even the very best plans get scrapped and rewritten once we start the journey. Doesn’t mean the plans were bad. But it does remind us that the only test of whether something we want to do is possible is trying it. Doing it.

So what’s on your heart and mind these days? And what are you waiting for? There’s no time like the present.