If you want to get a new job (or throw a killer dinner party, run a five-minute mile, clean your house, or write a novel, for that matter), you have to take each individual step that gets you there. You must put one real or metaphorical foot in front of the other. I liken this to taking out your real or metaphorical wallet and putting your real or metaphorical money where your mouth is. Remember: It’s not only dollars that can represent action and commitment.
So if you’ve set a goal to get a new job and the first step in your strategy is polishing your résumé, and you’ve put aside an hour on Saturday to focus on that and only that task—now you have to do it. Get in the zone. Sit down, open the document, and DO THE WORK. You set aside an hour, so use it.
Finally, it’s important to note that you’re only as good as the last step you took. Great work updating that résumé! But if it sits in a folder on your computer gathering cyber-dust and you never send it out to potential employers, then your shit is not officially “together.” You’re more like Ross and Rachel when they were on a break, and we all know how that turned out.
You have to commit all the way. Shit or get off the pot, so to speak.
Of course, some people are all excuses and no action. They aren’t overwhelmed or overbooked; they’re just lazy, and they do the same thing, i.e., nothing, over and over again, expecting different results. Some of them are all up in my Twitter feed like I don’t give a fuuuuuuuuck about getting my shit together! Haha, guys. I see what you did there. Read my first book, didja?
Yeah, I know. Stop giving so many fucks? That sounds awesome! Get your shit together? Boo, THAT SOUNDS LIKE TOO MUCH WORK.
Well, no shit, Sherlock. This is mental decluttering, not mental napping.
If you’re a chronic bullshitter with no real goals in life and no intention of setting any, that’s cool, but you just wasted $18.99 ($24.99 in Canada).
And what do the rest of us say to those people?
Seriously, get your shit together!