DARE WHIP IT, ZIP IT, SHIP IT!

It’s almost the end of another year.  Please know that I’m not referring to your holiday packages here, but rather the package (or is it baggage?) inside your head, heart, body and soul. Do you know where your dreams and schemes are?   Are you like so many women over 40, so over-extended and busy working on others’ dreams and schemes that yours are getting short-shrift?  Or, are you obsessing on the right moment, the perfect whatever, one more final change, revision, rewrite, remodel, reconciliation, before you consider something complete or final – or even take one step toward making it complete and final?  I’m not recommending anything drastic or reckless here.  Just a simple empowering cheer to stop procrastinating or postponing or waiting – if all that waiting and procrastinating and postponing is doing you more harm than good.

Do any of the following statements sound like you?

“It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”

“I’m going to have to reschedule.”

“I can’t help it, I’m a perfectionist.”

“Tomorrow is another day.”

“I would have, I should have, I could have. But, I didn’t. And I regret it.”

How many times most women over 40 have heard or spoken those words!  For some of us, they’re the guiding principles of our lives. Our lives are filled with so much to do and so much to distract us, that we seem to go from one activity to the next without considering what really needs to get done. We often don’t consider what really needs our undivided attention and what really justifies a heightened sense of urgency so we can make the most important tasks our most important priorities.  Consider that you’ll have one of the best New Year’s Eve nights ever if you identify the projects or activities that you’ve been postponing, procrastinating about, or constantly revising to the point of obsession, and decide you’re going to Whip It, Zip It, Ship It!

Of those three options, “Ship” is the linchpin.  In fact, the manifesto to “Ship” is just one of the many exhilarating takeaways of Linchpin, the newest book by world-class marketing genius and all-around charming and witty writer Seth Godin.  Godin, the author of 11 best-sellers and five free online e-books (bless his heart, right??), devotes an entire chapter in Linchpin to urging all creative persons to get beyond the fear and resistance that makes us hold on to our art for longer than is healthy, and to just commit to “ship” and “Join the Cult of Done.”

On the very first page of the chapter titled “The Resistance,” is a concentric circle graphic that shows the most evil word of all nudging into the intersection of the three wistful regrets of could have, should have, and would have – the demonic, airless, finger-pointing place:  “Didn’t.”  Godin assures us that it doesn’t have to be that way, that letting go and declaring it done is the best way to make art.  Yes, art!

I, for one, am adopting my own manifesto:  “Getting It Done Means More Time For Fun.”  If you have a better one, let me in on it.  I’d love to hear from you!  Over the next month, I’ll have plenty of tips and ideas for how to Whip it, Zip it and Ship it that have nothing to do with anything bad or harmful or reckless.  Rather, we’ll focus solely on what you have to do to Whip It, Zip It and Ship It – to Get DARE From Here™.

Seth Godin

Seth Godin’s Book: Linchpin

Tags: goals, Linchpin, over 40, over 50, procrastinate, procrastination, second half of life, Seth Godin, women over 40

This entry was posted on Friday, November 5th, 2010 at 1:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.