What Are You Willing To Declare?

My son has become slightly addicted to You Tube and the “personalities” that have “channels” on this platform. Now, I don’t understand it all, but what I’ve gathered is that people build a following of “subscribers” who opt in to the videos that they post. The more “subscribers” they have, the more relevancy that their content has on this platform.

So, one of his “goals” was to build his own channel with subscribers. I asked him this morning, “What is your goal for the number of subscribers you will get this year?” His response…”I don’t know?” Then came all of the stories about how hard it is to get subscribers, how it just takes luck to get noticed, how he doesn’t have ways to reach people, etc. He wasn’t willing to “declare” a number because, at that point, his stories were more persuading than his results. He wanted to stay in the world of “unreal” reasons and would not venture into the world of declared results. This became a conversation about his willingness to fight for his “reasons” or to fight for his “results.”

I will have you consider that we tend to operate this way as well. We don’t want to declare our goals and objectives because we instantaneously become accountable. Without declaration, it’s easy to fight for reasons. With declaration, we are accountable for results. The “wants” in our head go from concept to reality and the pressure increases. It becomes “real.”

Whether it’s subscribers on You Tube, total revenue generated, memberships sold, or weight lost, once we declare an objective, the game changes. The longer that we are allowed to operate in a world of uncertainty, the less engaged in that game we will become. We will not push ourselves to take action, to grow, or to find new ways to approach obstacles.

Clarity + results focus – excuses = massive actions.

The reality is that we’ve become a society of “everyone wins” where we crave comfort over growth. We intentionally set the bar low so no one’s ego gets bruised. We tell stories instead of take action. I’m not accusing anyone, because this has become the “norm” and it’s easy to accept this as reality.

Today, I will challenge everyone to find one area of their life that they will declare a result that will require growth, and commit to achieving it. Maybe it’s a number on the scale? Maybe it’s a number in the bank account? Maybe it’s a number at work? It could be a measure of time spent or it could be a resulting product. Whatever it is for you, declare it – to friends, family, or co-workers – then, get ruthlessly committed to that one objective. You might be surprised what you can accomplish when the results are more important than the stories that you allow to distract you.