You Need a Rocket!. Martin B Ayles

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      Chapter 2: Your Choice

      You are where you are today as a result of your choices yesterday. You may believe that someone else is responsible for where you are at in life, but that is nothing more than passing the blame. The reality is that there is not a thing you can do about your past and no matter where you are presently in life, you can make changes to tomorrow’s results, but it has to be your choice. What you get tomorrow is nothing more than the results of what you do today.

      Let me explain.

      Let’s say you have a weight problem, that is not related to any medical condition apart from not getting off your butt and doing some exercise. One reason you may be overweight is that you shove too much fatty fried food in your mouth. People who are starving are not overweight, so isn’t it obvious that one way we become overweight is by eating excessive, fatty food? Excess food and fat makes you fat!

      That’s my ‘brief’ perspective on dieting! In short that’s not all you need to know about dieting, but the point I am making is that you’re the one who chooses what goes into your mouth. Just because there are a lot of TV adverts saying its ok to eat their sugar-filled, colour-filled and additive-filled product, does not make it OK to eat. Is this a book about diet? No, it’s a book about choices.

      In your life so far, you have gotten exactly what you chose to get and it just seems that all too often people take the pie instead of the salad. All we need to do, is make a choice either way, but usually a whole stack of excuses and poor reasons get in the way of not choosing the better option for the long-term gain.

      Then we end up with the pie, because we are all so busy and it’s quick, easy and we can eat it on the run. We are all so busy and even though a lot of us are suffering either financially or emotionally as a result of being busy, it seems we try to bury the pain of our present situation by consuming a pie loaded with 30 grams of fat disguised with ketchup! We know it will hurt us later one way or another. The result is a yummy and short-lived nice feeling as we gobble down the pie. For a brief moment in life, we can enjoy the so-called meaning of feeling good. About 15-minutes later when our body is trying desperately to absorb the greasy pastry, salt, sugar and butter from the pie we begin to realise that maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do.

      Then we compensate by saying, “That’s OK, I’ll start eating well tomorrow,” but as we both know, for most of us tomorrow never seems to come. And then along comes the weekend so we justify the junk food intake again by saying, “That’s OK, I’ll start eating well Monday,” then off we go again on our excuse-making journey never seeming to make any changes to our habits!

      One of the best things I ever learned from Australian Entrepreneur, Brad Sugars, was that in life there is a line and we can play above it or below it, but ultimately it’s your choice where you play.

      It goes like this:

      Accountability

      Responsibility

      Ownership

      ___________ _______________

      Blame

      Denial

      Excuses

      So what side of the line are you going to choose to live from now on? These days a lot of people in society are living below the line and this is one of the reasons why we have so many legal cases going on. Everyone wants to sue someone because it was someone else’s fault. It’s also happening in relationships and businesses. Liability cases are more common than ever. So if your job sucks, your boss is a jerk and your bank balance is continually heading in the minus direction, then ask yourself a few questions ...

      Do you choose to work there?

      Do you choose to accept the hourly pay rate you’re on?

      Did you decide to buy some stuff on credit card that you could have done without?

      It’s not anyone’s fault but your own, as to where you are in life … In some way we’ve all been through tough situations in life, granted some are worse than others, but if you’re reading this and saying “Oh yeah, but what about me, I had a rough upbringing,” or “My family never had any money and I didn’t get the same opportunities as others,” then you are living in the state of blame which is below the line. You can’t change the past so get over it quickly and move forward. Looking back and feeling sorry for yourself is just going to delay the desired outcome that you deserve.

      You choose which side of the line you want to live on. You can make excuses like, “I don’t earn enough money and that’s the reason I am broke,” or you can just deny being in a situation full stop. “Wasn’t me!” is a common one for this. The reality is you get exactly what you ask for in life, whether it is your financial position, your health or your chosen career path. No matter what it is you’re doing, you will have to choose what side of the line you live on from now on.

      So now, if you weren’t already, I hope you’ve decided to live above the line! I found that when I learnt this concept everything I achieved in life seemed to come back to what side of the line I had chosen to live on. I have met rich people who are unhealthy and I have met healthy people who are poor, but what it came back to was that they had chosen to become rich and forgotten about health. The healthy person was poor because they had focused on health and fitness but not money and wealth.

      The reality is in some areas of their lives they had chosen to live above the line and in other areas of life they had chosen to live below the line. So my question to you is this … What areas of your life do you believe you need to change to play above the line? It may be your physical fitness, financial position, relationship, your job, or your personal development and the list goes on.

      Just by moving above the line won’t change anything; you are still going to have to do some work when you get there. But until you decide to go, there is no point trying to fix anything. Self-doubt and laziness are the two main reasons why you may have trouble getting started. So move your butt and make your decision quickly to change. The quicker you move above the line the quicker you can get through all the other stuff you have to do and get rich!