Right Now

The search for the perfect moment is one of the biggest obstacles to achievement. I have heard the sentiment wrapped in various quotes and truths:

"Don't wait for the perfect moment. Take the moment and make it perfect."

“If you wait for the perfect moment when all is safe and assured, it may never arrive. Mountains will not be climbed, races won, or lasting happiness achieved.”

"If you keep waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect moment will pass you by."

and my personal favourite,

"The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago. The second best time is now."

This is to say get off your butt and do what you want to do. Time waits for no one.

For someone with a progressive disability, no truer words are spoken. I always say, "I do the things I can do while I can do them." The truth may be more evident for me, but it is not any less true for anyone else.

I have spent too much time waiting for the perfect moment to pursue my true passions, one of which is writing a book. It perplexed me since I am usually very focused and driven to achieve career and personal goals (except losing weight, that never lasts. I love food too much.) But for everything else, I am like a heat-seeking missile, finding exactly what I want and taking each fearless step to get there.

Why was this taking me so long?

I keep saying I need to 'get in the zone'. The 'zone' is the perfect moment for me. This is how I write. Once I'm in the zone, it was an effortless process where my imagination weaves into the right words and takes a story into places it was meant to go. I often go back to read what I wrote and don't even remember writing it.

But clearly, getting into the zone when you put pressure to get in the zone is what actually keeps you from getting there.

Or is it just fear, fear that once I try this thing I want so badly to be good at, I'll actually be terrible at it?

The other sure-fire barrier to success: fear.

The truth is you can grow old waiting for the perfect moment to try something, but that perfect moment is now and you are missing it because you are too busy making up reasons for why you haven't tried.

Change the definition of failure. Failure is not having tried, not trying and not achieving perfection when excellence is good enough.