Heath & Wellness

Want a great future? Act “as if” you’re already there.

November 16, 2010

“Can you believe that next week is Thanksgiving?”  Several people have asked me that question over the past couple of days.  And, no, I really can’t.  Where did the year go? It seems as though the time is flying by for all of us.  2011 is right around the corner.

So, have you thought about where you want to be a year from now?  Thanksgiving is a perfect time to reflect on the past year and think about where you want to be next Thanksgiving.  In fact, envisioning your future is a great way to create your personal magnet that will pull you toward that future.  Here’s the thing:  If you don’t know where you want to be a year from now, how are you going to get there?

In his book, The E-Myth Revisited, author Michael Gerber recounts a story about Tom Watson, the founder of IBM explaining the phenomenal success of the company.

“IBM is what it is today for three special reasons.  The first reason is that, at the very beginning, I had a very clear picture of what the company would look like when it was finally done.  You might say I had a model in my mind of what would look like when the dream — my vision — was in place.

The second reason was that once I had that picture, I then asked myself how a company which looks like that would have to act.  I then created a picture of how IBM would act was finally done.

The third reason IBM has been so successful was that once I had a picture of how IBM would look when the dream was in place and how such a company would have to act, I then realized that, unless we began to act that way from the very beginning, we would never get there.

In other words, I realized that for IBM to become a great company it would have to act like a great company long before it ever became one.”

Watson is talking about the power of acting “as if” you’ve already achieved your goals.  If you know what you want and where you want to be, start now acting “as if” you’re already there.  You will be astounded at the changes you’ll see in your life.

Want to see what “acting as if” looks like?  Check out this video of Harvard University Basketball Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith.

1 Comment

  1. Brian Frolo says:

    Thanks for the positive take on the colloquialism “as if”.

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