The fourth in a series of blog posts appealing, beseeching, imploring YOU to design a written life plan for the coming year!

Life happens. Time passes. We age. This happens whether we are prepared for it or not, whether we like it or not.

There are many ways to look at life, to approach it, and most have some measure of validity.

I believe that certain actions, certain efforts, are high leverage.

I also believe greatly in the power of compounded effort, the power of (polite) persistence. I have seen first-hand the impact of compound interest in accumulating wealth over the years and its power to create prosperity.

Small efforts now, small investments of time, energy, and money made NOW, intelligently directed AND added to regularly, will yield, over time, large results. Large results that would be daunting to achieve over smaller time horizons, large results that will surprise even you, their originator and creator. Large results that will impress and awe those who lacked your foresight to begin. Large results that will intimidate those who attempt to duplicate them in shorter time frames.

Number one excuse: “Well, yes, if only I were younger. It is too late to start now. I’m ‘x’ years old, I have ‘y’ responsibilities.”

While it is true that the stage of your life may modify or impact where or how you choose to start your efforts (see the small truth that serves as cover for the big lie?), it is blatant self-sabotage to use your life stage as an excuse not to begin something. Sam Walton was in his early 50s before he opened his first Wal-Mart, Colonel Sanders was in his 70s before KFC took off, and Winston Churchill was in his 60s when he became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Greatness has no fear of time.

Begin something! Keep at it regularly. Modify it as feedback and circumstances suggest, but continue. You are worthy of your dreams.

In the final analysis, it is really only you (and life and energy you allow your fears to possess) that can truly stop you. The question life asks of you is “If not now, when?” What will your answer be?

This is a classic from the NSC Blog archive. Originally posted December 29, 2008.