Continuing from beautiful insights from John Mason’s book Imitation is Limitation, today I discuss another lovely quote from him: Many people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a lifetime.
In another quote from Jean De La Bruyere states that: There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste; no honor is too distant to the man who prepares himself for it with patience.
Again these quotes offer profound advice on how one can individually live a life of consequence both within the year and over a lifetime. Unlike the false belief that there is anything new that happens at the beginning of each new year, the fact remains that time is ageless.
There is nothing that changes in the order of God’s plans or the universe between 2359 hours and 0000 hours on the night of December 31. However, what does change is that the count of our years under the sun increases as simultaneously does the number of our days left under the sun decreases.
Technically, therefore, the ending and beginning of the new year is simply a specification of a timeframe/horizon over which we can measure achievements or track milestones from our limited time under the sun. Thus, it is for us to set realistic targets that we can track and measure within this time specification as we build toward our overall impact while we live.
A few minority of people achieve phenomenal results when the majority while away as time lapses for them to live. The good thing is that the creator has allotted us the same amount of time each, but allows us the discretion to plan how to use this time.
Here are some considered thoughts on why it is good to make realistic plans if we desire to achieve much in the long term:
- You can only do so much given our inherent human limitations – while we are all gifted differently, the human body is created with an inherent operating system for work, recreation, rest, and fun among others. There just is a limit to how many hours you can put into active work each day to be productive, beyond which you risk crushing the system. Winners just know how to find this balance for peak performance in their lives;
- Setting realistic targets and achieving them builds momentum – the long-term success of any individual builds from simple daily achievements. As alluded to in an earlier article, every day I write this article, it may look none consequential individually, but if I do not create time for it each week, I won’t have 52 articles by December. Imagine how many and the impact this would have to go through my page in 5 years;
- Each milestone achieved multiplies at an increasing rate – for anyone who has ever traveled by plane or speed train, it is very difficult to know the speed it is moving, but the people outside can see how fast it is moving. While inwardly simple goals delivered may look trivial, over a year and in a lifetime they turn into phenomenal achievements due to their multiplying power and ability to compound. Unless you make these simple milestones first, you cannot access the multiplying and compounding power;
- We are wired to find motivation from what can be seen, felt, or touched – the moment you achieve something, the more is the motivation to work on towards the next. Thus, unless you are achieving something now, you won’t have the motivation to work towards the next;
- You can only know you are in the right direction by starting the journey – many dreams die in our thoughts and consultations with others. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes the actual doing to know if it works or it doesn’t. Those who get started are the only ones who get the privilege of making this discovery. Otherwise, you may keep up only complaining as time whiles away.
The best thing is to get on with what you have, discover and learn as you move along.