This post comes from Dan Miller of 48 Days Are you strong enough to make this decision?:

This morning I was listening to Joe Polish on his I Love Marketing podcast.  He and Dan Sullivan were talking about what it means to “decide.”

I was blown away to hear Dan point out that the Latin word from which we get “decide” is the Act Nowsame root word from which we get homicide, suicide, genocide, fungicide, pesticide, and many more.  All of these words end in “cide”, from the Latin word “caedere” which means to kill.

It means to kill off – when you decide you are going to stop something.

When you decide on your future, something from the past is not going to come along with you.  Think about it.  When you decide to get a new car – you’re going to trade, sell or give away your old one.  When you decide to go to college – you’re going to stop doing something you’re doing now.  When you decide to get a new job or start your own business – you’re going to stop some of the things in your current life.

You have to decide to open the door to the future you want.  Dan says one of the reasons immigrants do so well here is that they have to decide on the very few things they can bring with them.  They leave most of their past behind.

When you choose a new future some of your past is not going to be valuable to you anymore.

So here’s the process for moving to the future you want:

  1. Describe the future you want
  2. Choose what part of the past gets to come along
  3. Decide what you will do right now to make it happen

You create your future by clarifying what that looks like, selecting the few things from your past you want to bring along, and deciding what steps you need to take right now to make that future a reality.

What will you decide today?

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