Imagine if you will a large gorge, an enormous gap between you on one peak of a mountain and another. You want to get across this chasm and the only way it seems possible to do that is to jump. The good thing about this story is that you can’t get hurt when you jump and if you don’t make it to the other side, you can stop attempting and leave or you can keep doing it over. You notice as you come to the edge and look at the vastness of this rut, that it seems impossible. You have never done this before and you’re certain it will be difficult to get across.

 Let’s say as you imagine this that you decide to go for it. You back up to a ready stance and make a run for it as hard and as fast as your little legs will go and as you approach the edge, you slide to a stop like a baseball player coming into home base, losing all momentum precisely before going over the edge and into the deep, dark unknown below. You stand up, dust yourself off and say, “This is crazy! What am I doing? I could get myself killed.” You have a choice in this moment, to attempt it again or go home. For some reason you decide to attempt it again as your mind hounds you and tells you how bad you failed the first time. The mind tells you that you can’t do this, but you go for it anyway. Again, you back up to a ready stance and make a run for it as hard and as fast as your little legs will go and as you approach the edge you jump with all of your might, giving it everything you have as you leap off the edge towards the other side. You realize as you are floating through the air like Michael Jordan that you are not Michael Jordan and you are significantly short of the other side. You are going down into the hole short of the prize. And as though it were magic, you suddenly appear on the ledge where you started.

“Interesting,” you say to yourself, “I didn’t die and I didn’t make it; how cool is that?” So you decide you will attempt it again. For the third time, you back up to a ready stance and make a run for it as hard and as fast as your little legs will go and as you approach the edge you jump with all of your might, giving it everything you have as you leap off the edge towards the other side and……….you miss! Back up to the ledge you go. You ask yourself, “How can I get to the other side? I know I can build a launching platform off the edge of the cliff, if I build it out a little ways, I know I can make it.” So you go about building yourself a launch pad. You make it strong and sturdy so it won’t break apart on liftoff. You finish your creation, back up to a ready stance and make a run for it as hard and as fast as your little legs will go and as you approach the platform you jump with all of your might, giving it everything you have as you leap off the edge towards the other side and……….you miss! Back up to the ledge you go. “How can I do this? It is really important to me that I get to the other side.”, you say to yourself. “What can I do to reach my goal?”

 It comes to you in a flash of visionary clarity, “Make the launch pad longer!” That’s it! That’s the secret sauce! You go to work and extend that launch pad out even further, back up to a ready stance and make a run for it as hard and as fast as your little legs will go and as you approach the platform you jump with all of your might, giving it everything you have as you leap off the edge towards the other side and……….you miss! Back up to the ledge you go.

 The thought keeps coming, “Make the launch pad longer!”

 Over and over and over you make attempt after attempt, each time getting closer and closer to the other side, yet you still fall short. However the thought says, “Make the launch pad longer!” As you build out your launch pad just a little bit longer, you notice that it’s touching the other side of the chasm. You have built a bridge across the chasm and calmly and easily step to the other side. Free to go back and forth whenever you choose.

 This is how our brains work. Neurons in our brains jump across chasms called synapses. As they do this your mind is communicating with your body that it wants a certain task performed. As you tell yourself repeatedly that what you are doing is important to you, the mind will begin to create a bridge between the synapse. The more you do a thing, the easier the mind makes it for the neurons to pass over and carry out the signal. As the gap is bridged, the signal  travels easily and automatically, it becomes a habit. We call this Mind Glue. The mind glues the bridge together.

 There are two types of habits that we form; those that work for us and those that work against us. All habits come about through the same process of repetition. The same process we use to create a habit is the same process we use to break it. It comes about through repetition.

 When we are starting something new, we are usually not very good at it. Norman Adler said “anything worth doing is worth doing crappy”. I like to call this phase the wobble. If you have ever spun a top you’ll notice that it seems to spin uncontrollably as though it will crash;  yet as it continues its path, the wobbling smoothes out to a controllable circular motion. This is how life works when we are doing something new. We start out being very uncomfortable, we wobble like crazy. As we continue to do it over and over again, it becomes easier and the wobbling goes away. I am of the opinion that when the wobbling goes away, it’s time to wobble again. It’s time to stretch further.

 When we create habits, good or bad, we wobble initially until we become proficient at it and when we break habits, we do the same thing. Most people give up during the wobble. They never make it through to smoothness. They never hold out long enough to make or break the habit. The only way to make it through is to hold on for the ride and be conscious that what you are experiencing is all part of the process. How badly do you want those habits? How badly do you want to achieve your goals? That will depend on how committed you are through the wobble.

 I challenge you to wobble through the chasms of life. Build those bridges that will ultimately lead to the success you seek.

 Choose Up!