May 19th, 1pm: Alive Decisions Discussion

The very first Fly With Amelia Foundation event is now on the calendar and I am excited to have you join us. On May 19th, 2013 at 1pm, I will lead an interactive discussion for adults, kids, teens… anyone who makes daily choices and wants to lead an engaged, focused life. The discussion will be based around flight metaphors and will be an open interaction between all who want to participate. The day includes FREE admission, a short film in the Harrison Ford Theatre, and a museum tour with me, after the live talk.

The Fly With Amelia Foundation will also give away a flight lesson during the event. All who arrive will be entered to win. If you have any questions or would like to volunteer, please send me an email at ameliaroseearhart@gmail.com.

Thank you!

Amelia

Subtle weenie or bolt of lightning? Both are within your reach.

It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
-Frederick Douglass

In a matter of 24 hours, our moods and emotions can fly all across the spectrum… from pure and unadulterated love and affection, to deep sadness and loss of hope, to apathy and aloof nonchalance. We are logical, smart human beings… so where does this fluctuation come from? There aren’t usually that many changes taking place in the real world. Most of these changes come from our reaction and feelings that we place on external factors. We all know that, but how do we conquer these sometimes dampening emotions and keep on our inspired track where progress, happiness and encouraging others is the rule rather than the exception? Don’t get me wrong, I am a feel your emotions deeply kind of girl… but it is the tricky little, inspiration crushing moments that can mean the difference between rockin’ a goal and rockin’ your sweat pants.

Time for some transparency… I am afraid of losing my ability to find inspiration. So what do you do when you can’t find the thing you need? You make it yourself.

My biggest, scariest, most smile killing, couch and cupcake inducing emotion, used to be the feeling that inspiration was rare and hard to come by and that it simply flew in and out of our minds and hearts on a whim. For a long time I convinced myself that inspiration was like lightning. I knew that, in order to find it, I needed to locate a thunderstorm… but even when I found the source of this awesome power, seeing the lightning was random and out of my control. Sitting on a hillside, hoping to see a bolt, much like waiting for someone, something, some place or idea to inspire me, left me feeling like my life’s accomplishments were based on some spark of outside influence. It became a wandering, seeking feeling that I needed to be perpetually staring at the sky, paranoid I would miss the view. In the mean time, I found myself missing out on exciting, creative, real-life opportunities because I was waiting for a flash of lightning-like inspiration to spur me on to do all the things that I knew, deep down, I could be capable of.

When I realized that I was the thunderstorm, I began to understand that I had the option to create my own lightning. 

Winston Churchill said, “You create your universe as you go along.” This type of mindset can sound a little narcissistic. Stay with me here… you can’t be of any use to anyone else, unless you are living and breathing the highest form of who you believe you are capable of becoming. Create, seek, love and nurture all the moments that make you feel alive. Seal them up and store them in your freezer for future use.

When I was driving out to Centennial Airport, heading to one of my last IFR flight lessons before my check ride  (I passed my IFR written exam!!) I was filled with lightning. Bright and bold, ready to strike and light up the sky, I easily learned and sought more understanding during my lesson.

This is in contrast to a few days back when I was a big ole lame mess. Tired and apathetic, I procrastinated and gave in to the negative feedback and pessimistic outlook of others. One of those influences was a negative note here on the blog. I was a little sullen and lacking that lustrous glow of potential and I was waiting on someone else to light me up. Anyone who has the time and need to send negative feedback should get the whole story first, rather than toss out random and hurtful words… Like Taylor Swift said, “why ya gotta be so mean?”  When I realized how silly this was, I had to pull up my boot straps and motivate myself.

Kind of vague, right? Vague sucks. Let’s get specific.

Here’s what I did to get out of my funk:

1) Went to the gym. Physical activity will almost instantly get you out of a bad mood.

2) Worked on the Fly With Amelia Foundation board of directors plan and created an outline for the May 19th event at Wings Over the Rockies.

3) Read a few pages from my oral prep book and realized how much I enjoy precision flight

4) Called a friend to talk about what was new in her life. Turns out she is really happy and that was instant smiles on my part.

5) Took a hot bath and went to bed on time… which meant 9pm. I get up at 3am so it takes an effort to be done with everything that early!

The point is this…when it comes to inspiration, no one is going to inspire you on a consistent basis except for yourself. You’ve got to have a plan for being that charge of energy that ignites the storm, that lifts clouds, crackles and pops with excitement and *change*.

I got an amazing facebook message from my friend Jessie yesterday…

• Jessie Louise

  “Miss Amelia. I don’t know when you’ll get this message– but my goodness. I have so few chic friends who have any idea how amazing what we do is. I spent the morning/afternoon flying around Eagle/Leadville/Rifle/Vail– landing on pinnacles, inside bowls, on shoulders and all above 10,000 (highest was 11,400). We landed and had lunch in Leadville– then flew some more– no rushing, just practice, practice– got to fly to several crash sites, the old Camp Hale (10th Mtn division did extreme cold wx training there during WWII), abandoned mines/ghosttowns– an A-10 crash site (on a pinnacle)– Amelia it was just the most brilliant day of my career so far. (I’m at the High Altitude School the CO national guard has in Eagle btw– its a train up for deployment, but I got lucky to come here to learn– otherwise I’d be doing all this training in a combat zone in August! We are so frikkin blessed girl!!!!!”

Here’s a link to her photos from that day: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.947501243203.1073741825.45200821&type=1

Moments like Jessie had yesterday don’t just fall into her lap. They happen because she creates her own storm, day after day. This girl is a ball of fire and feisty amazement and she is a role model to me. She is lightning and thunder and she isn’t waiting around for someone else to hand her inspiration on a silver platter. She’s in the kitchen, making a big ole batch of it right now.

If you want inspiration, don’t sit around and wait for it to pop up on your newsfeed, a pretty sunset view, or a bolt of lightning in a storm, go out and seek it like a thirsty dude looking for gatorade in the desert. Think of how incredibly turned on your life becomes when you know what you want… life comes alive and decisions can then be made to get yourself closer to where you want to be.

Being subtle is for weenies. Go get what you want and encourage others to engage in what they love.

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work. -Mark Twain

Baseball and alchemy: Why everyday can feel like Opening Day

It’s a Spring day, still dark, the city is waking. Like any other Thursday, most have a little Friday itch coming on… but on this one in particular, the city is buzzing with the anticipation of baseball season. This week, a lot of folks spent their moments charging through their Mondays and Tuesdays, dreaming of a Friday filled with laughter, friends, sports and sunshine. I’ll be the first to tell ya, there ain’t nothin’ wrong with all of that. Get your chores done so you can go have some fun, we’ve all been there.

However, I will tell you that each day, each moment, each second can feel like Opening Day at the baseball stadium if you choose it to be.

****

When I am at work, between traffic and weather reports, making coffee and building graphics for our morning news show, I like to think about how many alarm clocks are simultaneously going off at any particular moment. A night of sleep, restful or spent tossing and turning, eventually comes to an end and you’ve got a choice to make. Will today be like yesterday? Was yesterday like the day before? Patterns and ruts can be nasty little devils and our days are certainly filled with things we just simply have to do. My challenge in all of this obligation is this: within all the have tos, the get tos, the want tos and the hope tos, it is time to throw in some alchemy.

Alchemy is a power or process of transforming something common into something special. 

Back to the moment when the alarm clock goes off… If we could listen in to all the sounds of the collective waking moment, would you be contributing to the grumbling, cranky groan or a light sigh of taking in engaged responsibility for a new day? Without alchemy, the common response to the alarm is a scowl, an immediate jump into all the things you don’t want to do. With alchemy, the alarm clock is simply a reminder that you get yet another chance to reinvent, perfect, rock, edge closer to whomever it is you have in your mind to become.

An alchemist of one’s day wakes with the realization that the world was made to experience. Here and now, without delay, jumping in… forget that separation and the false idea that some things are special and some things are not. Do you ever find yourself getting tasks done, over with and out of the way, just to get on to the “fun” stuff. Get work done, get the grocery shopping done, go to the gym, homework, housework… all done in order to have more time to watch Desperate Housewives? I hope not.

When we categorize our day in to things we don’t want to do and things we do want to do, we are automatically allowing our minds to slip into the mode of “right now in this moment, I am common and normal”. When we do the fun stuff, our minds lean towards, “This is what I want, finally I finished the common stuff and now I am living”.

With the alchemist’s perspective, there is a heightened awareness of each correspondence, interaction, movement, and task. It is something my yoga instructors refer to often… conscious awareness of breath to draw your focus back to the here and now. When you are asked to focus on something as common as breath, you realize just how complex, beautiful and important it can be. The alchemist sees nothing as common, nothing as more or less “fun” than the rest, everything is an opportunity to be your most alive, creative, alert, engaged, feeling self.

It is easier to be your own alchemist when things are going your way… good moods allow you to jump in and rock those rose colored glasses, but it is the down times when you need the alchemist’s keen eye the most. I recently had a family emergency that made me feel like I was going to lose the most important person in my life. The why and the how doesn’t matter right now, but the heightened level of “this moment really matters” was brought to the forefront of my mind. Would I break down and mope and sulk over what may or may not happen, no. You do what you need to do when the moment is critical. In my case, I made the call to that person and had a real, gritty, somewhat angry talk about things that needed to change and improve. When you transform the common into something special, you carry more potential, opportunity and accessibility than you ever knew you could have.

When I hear the word alchemist, I, like many others immediately think of the awesome Paulo Coelho book by the same name. While that book was life shaping for me and its level of beauty truly unmatched, today’s comparison is slightly different.

Paulo Coelho wrote The Alchemist in only two weeks.

When asked how he was able to do it he answered, “because the story was already written in his soul”.

When you decide to exude your story of who and what you want to represent, your morning alarm will no longer be a cue to avoid the inevitable, it will be a call to action. The common day is yours for the rocking, if you decide to be the alchemist of your own day.

Back to baseball… An entire season of around 162 games starts with an Opening Day. If a team was only enthusiastic that first day out of the gate, they would fail miserably, and some certainly do. The teams that seize EVERY SINGLE opportunity to be excellent at their craft are the ones that come out on top. Opening Day will get your heart racing because of the feelings associated with that day, a way we all want to collectively feel.

The alchemist in us knows that turning the common in to the extra ordinary is as simple as deciding to see and feel the way we choose. How do you want to feel? Excited? Seek it. Mindful? It doesn’t cost you a thing. Successful? Work your tail off. Truly… we decide what happens and we decide our “luck”.

Here’s to hearing that alarm clock go off in the morning and treating it as an opportunity for the extraordinary to come alive. Opening Day is a new start. So is right now.

The Fly With Amelia Foundation

It is with great pleasure and excitement that I announce the creation of the Fly With Amelia Foundation, a Colorado non-profit organization providing aviation opportunities to all, free aviation based educational curriculum to grades K-12, and scholarship funding of flight training to young women. In partnership with Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum, the Fly With Amelia Foundation will work to engage our community in flight based educational activities and promote the future of general aviation through the recreation and symbolic completion of Amelia Earhart’s 1937 flight around the world. 

The first Amelia Earhart said, “my ambition is to have this wonderful gift produce practical results for the future of flying and for the women who want to fly tomorrow’s planes.” The first time I flew in an airplane, I felt like Amelia was there with me, encouraging me to become an inspired aviatrix. It is now my turn to pass on this same inspiration to the future of female pilots and to those they, in turn, will inspire. 

It will take a team of mentors, educators, pilots, donors and inspired young women to pull all of this off and I would love for you to get involved. If you are interested in learning more, please send me an email at ameliaroseearhart@gmail.com. As the foundation grows and develops, I will provide more information about how to nominate a future aviatrix and how to keep updated on events! 

 

Blue skies, 

 

Amelia Earhart

President of the Fly With Amelia Foundation

The 24 hour “what if” challenge

Living in the “what if” stage can be pretty addictive…

What if… you ask the question, request the favor, make the change, take the leap, quit the job, ask the girl, *answer* the question, get off the couch, turn off the tv, pay the bill, sign up, check out, check in to your goal?

You know that comfy feeling when you are staring into space, pondering what would happen if you do any one of these things? That place is dream land. No one holds you accountable for your unspoken “what ifs”, so you get to play and peruse possibility. You can be the biggest version of yourself in this space… you can be bold and sexy, quiet and constructive, in a sense, you are only limited by the bounds of your imagination. Who wouldn’t want to swim around in that kind of potential?

The problem comes when this place of dreaming becomes your comfort zone… Circling in the holding pattern between the conception of an idea and the physical action of starting the process is a space that doesn’t really have a lot of gumption or enterprise. It is a calm place, a hiding place. No one is going to drag you out of this lingering, meandering circle… you have to request your own clearance and move towards a decision, an action, a plan.

You have to decide if you are going to be the dreamer who stays asleep or the dreamer who wakes up and carpes the hell of the diem.

When you hang in the “what if” limbo, you are pressing pause on anything and everything that moves, grows, feels, and counts. Of course, that “what if” time is totally necessary for planning and preparing for the experiences we want to have, but let’s face it… we all spend a lot more time imagining the consequences of the “what ifs” than we do acting on them.

How long do we wait before engaging, trying and saying hello to all the deliciously interesting parts of life? What if we just did a fraction of the things we are imagining. That would be a biography of a life that I would want to read. Sometimes I ask the question, “if my life were a movie, would I keep watching?” or would I be bored out of my mind, screaming at the screen, telling myself to stop worrying so much about what might happen if I just got out of my head and started getting things done.

Here’s my challenge to you… In the next 24 hours, allow 3 of your big “what ifs” to be answered.

It will be a little scary, it will be a little uncomfortable. So what.

Act on your “what ifs”. Be the bold one who at the end of the day surprises him/herself a little bit. It could be really fun….

Maybe you have been thinking about learning something new, going back to school, getting involved with a charity, taking your career to a new level, branding yourself differently, making a new fitness commitment, whatever it is, you can spend a lot of time considering the idea or you can start answering your “what ifs” to get some answers.

“What if” you actually answered 3 of your “what ifs”…

Shuffling your deck

Did you know that EVERY single time you shuffle a deck of cards, the outcome will be completely UNIQUE? That goes for every shuffled deck that has ever, will ever, be shuffled by anyone. Ever. Think on that. The permutation of a standard deck of 52 cards has the following number of possible arrangements:

52 isn’t a huge number, but the combinations of options from the 52 cards is a pretty healthy batch of changes. Jacks, Kings, the 2 of hearts, they are all in there, ready to be shuffled and rearranged, ready to create a combination that has never existed in history and will never, ever, exist again. I am a firm believer that the hand we are dealt is made wholly of the cards we allow ourselves to play with.

When I heard this big ole number, my head started spinning. If 52 cards can be arranged in that many ways, what does that say for choices, decisions, outcomes and opportunities in our own lives? We all have way more than 52 things we could rearrange in order to create a new scenario, a fresh outlook, a new angle, a feeling of starting over.

My top 52 for today (the best part is, they change all the time!): attitude, goals, family, work, diet, hours of sleep, focused time on studies, time spent writing, alone time, work relationships, health, intention, time spent flying, building new relationships, asking for help, friends, social media interaction, breaking bad habits, building new positive habits, organization, time spent worrying, care for others, my budget, prioritizing tasks, my importance of the opinions of others, wasted time, being uncomfortable, planning, daily tasks, charity, unconventional ideas, time spent online, being kind, saying yes, saying no, saying not today but maybe soon, down time, relaxation, speaking up, acting like a child, acting like an adult, decision making, being aware of the big picture, meditation, focus to detail, dreaming, outside input, inspiration, research, safety, conservation, feeling.

You may relate to some of my 52 or maybe none at all, the point is, when you focus on the same top 5 out of 52 day in and day out, you are leaving out a lot of very important other options that all have a place in your deck. You don’t have to eliminate cards, but you also don’t have to be afraid to give the deck a shuffle every now and again to feel that fresh newness of a renewed, excited plan.

If I dig deep into my deck, and tomorrow, I focus on things like saying yes, research, organization, breaking bad habits and dreaming, I would probably have a totally different day than if I went by the usual plan of focusing on attitude, family, work, diet etc. as the same way I focus each day. I am by no means saying to ignore your typical top 5, we already know we’ve got those covered, but a shuffle can allow you to feel alive, fresh, renewed and inspired to see through a slightly different set of eyes. You will naturally pay mind to the things you focus on during a typical day… but… with a new hand that you deal yourself, you’ll be playing the game confidently and with a strong hand full of intentional choices.

When you start of each day by looking at all your options, rather than going with what makes you feel comfortable and at home, you will inevitably start to do some rearranging along the way, fixing and plotting, getting priorities aligned in a smart way that can build your strategy for success… heck, maybe your deck will go flying into the air and you’ll have to pick up all the cards one by one, once again, creating an arrangement that is all yours.

The best part about all of this is that the new arrangement that you are priviledged enough to hold in your hot little hands has never existed before and will never exist again.

So go ahead, shake things up, shuffle your deck. Just remember, you decide what goes into that stack of cards.. every single day.\

Here’a link to the video I mentioned in my video blog above: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKZStlBECHo

The two days of the year when nothing can be done…

Click for a larger view, share for larger inspiration:

I hope your day was filled with delicious, ambitious, heartfelt action!

I wanted to share a podcast interview with SimpleFlight Radio that I did last week… flying, goal setting, and focused inspiration were the topics we covered.

We also decided to rock the Twitter Hashtag: #gulpingbeauty

Here’s a link: http://www.simpleflight.net/aviation-radio-show-archive.html

Thanks to the crew at Simple Flight for believing in general aviation and my plans for an around the world flight!

-Amelia

Obvious? You betcha. Incredibly powerful? Ohhh yeah.

I am a creature of the night, waking at the deeply dark, wee hours of the morning to head to the tv station where I prognosticate about all things traffic, weather and news. The alarm sounds at 3:30am these days, which is a nice break from the previous 2:30 honking that woke me from my delicious flying dreams at previous times. Eyes flutter open, muscles come alive and more often than not, a smile slips across my lips, knowing today is the best day in history.

Hair and makeup, dresses and heels, espresso (raspberry and vanilla these days) and I am out the door with a quick kiss blown to my faithful little pup, Nubbin. When I get in the car, I have approximately 14 minutes to set my mood just right.

The freeway is a runway leading straight toward whatever day I want to have.

What I noticed today, as I drove in for a Sunday morning weather shift at 9News, was how clear and deep the night sky seemed as I pressed the gas pedal and roared onto I-25. Through the windshield, the stars gleamed, constellations crisp and obvious to the North, inviting my stare to linger longer than usual. I was alone, baring the rare opposite direction freeway companion. It was the color of the sky that really got to me this morning. It was a bluish black, with no end in sight. There was no promise of impending light, no hint of a day ahead. Pure, calm, silky black eternity.

What would it be like to fly in this night sky? On a Sunday morning at 4am? Sure, I’ve had night flight time, as pilot, as passenger, as sleepy shoulder sleeper, but this, this would be different. My mind immediately went to the pinnacle of my flight goals, an eventual flight around the world. There will be hours upon hours spent flying at night and inevitably, there will be a 4am adventure across the night sky. I get chills thinking of what it will be like to look back on even just the writing of this blog post, wondering what and where and how and oh my goodness it is all so possible!

The first Amelia saw what I am imagining, craving, working toward, first hand, and summed it up in such a succinct way… “The stars seemed near enough to touch and never before have I seen so many. I always believed the lure of flying is the lure of beauty, but I was sure of it that night.”

There is a reason that I am so focused and amped up toward diving into that night sky, especially as of late. A personal recommitment has been made, a show of respect toward the big goals and what they stand for and it has all come from a new sense of understanding exactly what we are all individually capable of. It comes down to deciding what you want to be and committing 100%.

Obvious? Completely.

Here’s where I realized I have failed in the past: Previously, a 99% commitment felt like a path toward success. If I was 99% there, 1% couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t matter, right?

Wrong.

That 1% is a powerful little beast. Take for example, a thought on exceptions to the “rule”. If you commit to working toward a goal 99% of the time, you will constantly use the excuse that today is the day to slack off, procrastinate, put it off, and let the work pile up. Is today the 1% exception? Sure, why not? I am 99% committed to my cause, my goal, my idea. This one time wont hurt. Two times is a fluke, everyone get’s a few free passes, three times starts to look like a pattern and then, before you know it, a 99% commitment looks like a 50% maybe I’ll get it done when I have the energy, when I lose ten pounds, when the kids graduate, when work slows down. Familiar? I’ve been there and I don’t want to go back. No way, José. 

That one little time turns to habit and you are back where you were when your goal was just a lofty idea without legs. When a 100% commitment is made, there are no exceptions, either you are or you aren’t. Do or do not. Be or don’t be. Progress can be slow, but commitment with intention and defined terms of success and hard work is sexy. Just make the first step, invite yourself to take the next, the third will feel good and then you are on a roll.

I’ll take it one step further… If you accomplished 99% of your goal, would you be happy? If out of 100 job candidates you were one away from the top, would you be stoked? In my case, if I flew 99% of the way around the world, I would certainly disappointed. You get out what you put in. Lately, my input has been learning, growing, soak up the amazing details of how awesome flight can be. When I talk about the goal, I show 100% on my face. You’ve got one life to give it all while you’re here. I don’t want to die with a bunch of unfulfilled ideas.

Am I sounding like some sort of crazy tyrant? I am not saying you’ve gotta be all work and no play… that would be a terrible way to live. What I am saying, is decide what you want and pour your whole heart into it. You are completely capable of doing whatever it is you can imagine. It feels damn amazing to accomplish goals, right? Do it more often. I can’t believe I am quoting John Mayer, but here goes: “If you had started doing anything two weeks ago, by today you would have been two weeks better at it.”

Back to night flight… lately, when I have a hard time studying, or going to a lesson after waking up at 3:30am, or taking the time to understand my craft, I go back to what it will feel like to slip into the sky and fly East towards the horizon. It kicks me in the ass, it lifts my heart, it rumbles my soul. It is like the aircraft engine starting… it feels like the beginning of something big.

Almost there is ok, but hitting your mark feels realllllllly good.

Love,

Amelia

What *can* you be, what are you *willing* to be?

Watch the video before you read!

These are 4 minutes and 19 seconds you’ll be glad you devoted your time to! Brian Johnson, creator of en*theos (www.entheos.com) and Philosopher’s Notes (www.entheos.com/philosophersnotes.com) struck a chord with me during his latest YouTube video on Optimal Living… he talked about that tricky little zone we all tend to visit more than we’d like: “The Integrity Gap”

He describes this place as, the distance between what you are *capable* of doing and what you are *actually* doing.

I watched this video while on the treadmill at the hotel here in Minneapolis, I am here for a meteorology conference that 9News sent me to. But first, rewind a bit… we got in a few hours early and it is nearly as cold as Denver here! Right around 7 degrees today. As I walked into my pretty little hotel room, I thought, ugh, there are so many things I need to get done! My room looks out over the Mall of America and I gotta tell ya, it was less than inspiring. Buy, buy, buy, eat, eat, eat, spend, spend, spend. It instantly put me in a bad mood!

I sat there on my perfectly pressed bed, thinking about how cold it was, how much I needed to get done, how lazy I felt, and how I would be here all week! We have all been there, right?

The afternoon could have gone one of two ways, turn on daytime (ugh) tv, surf Facebook and listen to everyone complain about the cold, and generally replicate the view I was looking at through my window, or…

I could *close my integrity gap* and cancel out the distance between what I was actually doing and what I was capable of doing. So I laced up my Pegasus sneaks and got my butt down to the gym.

New view, new body temperature (hot hot hot) and a new feeling that I was now doing what I was capable of. I came back upstairs, wrote some exciting follow up emails about the round the world flight, made a few calls that included a big ask *with a yes response!* and popped up the lap top to jot this note.

((((I am not trying to brag by writing this blog, yadda yadda, I got so much done. Not that at all. I just want to make sure that the people who care enough to read the post get the same opportunity to feel as incredible as I do. ))))

As Brian says, the gap is filled with regret (I should have gotten more accomplished), anxiety (I am falling behind and my goals will not get accomplished), and disillusionment (blah, blah, life ain’t so fun).

Back to the point of the video- how can you close the gap?

It is truly as simple as being the highest version of yourself moment to moment. That even feels good to write… what would the best version of you do right now, literally right in this very moment?

For me, it is writing this down and having the courage to push the publish button.

To closing the gap…

Here goes.

Inertia: Why your next 5 decisions matter more than all the rest

Think back to being 9 years old. You’re running down a hill, chasing a friend, you’re neck and neck. The trees, the grass, the sky it’s all a blur of summertime warmth and glee. You didn’t know your legs could go this fast… you pull ahead. Your legs pump in Olympic fashion, and suddenly, you’ve lost control. Bones and flesh turn to jelly and in your mind, you picture a cartoon character with a blur of limbs circling beneath. You really want to win this race so you let your legs do their own work. Your legs are no longer yours to speed up or slow down, but you continue running. Legs keep doing what they have been trained to do. Heart pumping, win or lose, energy is in your favor and with nothing to slow them down, they just keep circling.

Newton’s Law of Inertia: An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by another opposite force. 

Warm in your bed, sleeping like a lamb, you continue to slumber until an alarm clock, a barking dog, a brain wave, a temperature change wakes you and shakes alert. Inertia broken. You’re awake.

Two weeks of exercise, a daily practice becomes the norm and you are on a roll. Suddenly going to the gym is not the exception, but rather the rule. Inertia is rockin’ your world. You get used to feeling a certain way and you like it. You may even love it.

Going to the grocery store… that’s way too hard. I’ll just grab something quick on the way home. Insert low quality, cheap, fast, bloating, greasy, super tasty food. Get home, feel like the mashed up, human version of what you just put in your mouth, turn on television and zone out with a cocktail… one of the toughest forms of inertia to resist continuing. Sounds like a great life, right?

We have all heard the superhero-like people that we look up to say things like, ‘you’ve just got to make the good stuff a habit’, ‘the good stuff has to be a daily practice’, ‘the good stuff has to be your way of life.’ We have all heard the people who want to make a change say things like, ‘the bad stuff became a habit’, ‘the bad stuff became a daily practice’, and ‘the bad stuff became my way of life.’ Hmm.

Take inertia in the most literal sense: What if your last five actions became the path of the rest of your life? What if inertia kept you rolling in the same direction of the last five things you thought, did, ate, or felt? Consider the following options:

Situation One: Last 5 actions 1)complaining about a co-worker’s actions 2)skipping the gym or any form of physical activity 3)ignoring a friend’s call because you knew they needed your thoughts and your ear on an important issue 4)eating low energy, junk and feeling like junk afterwards 5)sleeping in whining when you finally do have to get out of bed because yesterday’s actions and thoughts gave you nothing to look forward to the next day.

Situation Two: Last 5 actions 1)waking up with a goal in mind, you made plans for something that excites you and you are looking forward to engaging in it 2)You move around a little, you shake it, you get your blood pumping, you smile at the kid in the grocery store because you have no particular reason to feel bad 3)You take the call from a friend and help them see that little changes can make a big difference and that every problem can be solved with a new perspective and by taking things one step at a time 4)You eat something that tastes, looks, feels, smells and like the stuff that fuels a healthy body 5)You encourage the coworker that is probably going through something at home that’s affecting their work performance. You offer help at work, but don’t feel like you have to complain or change the situation. You are simply a friendly face.

I don’t know about you, but to me, it is pretty easy to see how the actions in each situation could lead to inertia in either direction. Either you remain on a path of lazy, negative, yuck or you remain on a path of energy, health and optimism.

What were your last 5 actions?

More importantly, what are your next 5 actions?

Whatever they were, there you are. Deal with it. Either continue to be the inertia or start to be the change. Your next 5 actions can be completely opposite of the last five or they can be as radiant as the last. We are, of course, what we repeatedly do.

Say you’re working towards a goal. You chip away at it every day, you quietly put in the effort and just get on it. One of my favorite authors, Tim Ferriss, has a good way of explaining what that looks like from the outside. Ferriss says, “most people are fast to stop you before you get started but hesitate to get in the way if you’re moving.” It turns out that he has a lot in common with Amelia Earhart… She once said, “never interrupt someone doing something you said couldn’t be done.” The reason I dig this way of thinking is because when you are setting out to do big things, people who live in the “Situation 1″ form of negative inertia will try to hack away at your goals. Even if they don’t say it to your face, they will think it, and probably tell their friends. It is always a compliment when this happens, as they are spending time thinking about what you are up to and wondering how the hell you are pulling it off.

Let ‘em.

Once you are on a roll, there you are, day by day, getting closer to your goal. It is hard to argue with results.

So here’s to a new year filled with the inertia that you choose. We all know that big goals, whether weight loss, a job promotion, an invention, a great relationship, a new skill, expanded learning, planning a flight around the world, whatever it is, it all requires a whole lot of hard work and elbow grease. These things don’t get accomplished through magic, they get accomplished through a series of steps that lead toward your goal. Inertia wants to work in your favor… an object at rest wants to stay at rest and an object in motion wants to stay in motion. You are the force acting against inertia. Either stop the bad or keep up the good. Your choice. 

Every last drop of the best parts of this big beautiful world are yours for the experiencing. Go get what you want, feel it deeply, teach others how you did it, and by all means, keep being oh so curiously engaged.

As Danielle Laporte says, “Life is full of opportunities to feel exactly how you want to feel.”

Take this opportunity to feel that way.

Why 5 decisions? Why not. High 5.