Useless Unless They're Used

Picture if you will, someone who wants to build a house. They go to the local Home Hardware, and pick up the lumbar, the shovels, the saws, the nails, the joists, the concrete for the basement, the drywall, the insulation, the exacto-knives, the hammers, the hardwood, the nailgun, screws, bolts, carpet, paint, shingles... and so on.

Then they head over to their plot of land, and spend an hour digging a hole where they plan to put the basement. After the hour's over, they head back to their crappy little apartment, and forget about the land for a week. The next week, they head back - the hole's almost been filled in by local kids, the weather... whatever. So they spend an hour to re-dig the hole... and go back to the apartment, only to return a week later to find that the hole looks almost exactly the same as the week before. They continue to do this for twelve weeks - and then go back to the Home Hardware, insisting that they deserve a refund... they bought all of this crap, and after three months, they STILL don't have a house.

Well, that's what happens when we people go into a gym, hire a trainer, get the heart rate monitor, get a fitness assessment, get outfitted at the local SportChek, have a program designed for them... and then put in the effort to improve themselves for a single hour a week. Then they come back to their trainer, and say "Why haven't I lost any weight? You must not be doing your job!".

Well, they're right about one thing - the trainer's not doing their job. Not because they haven't given the person all of the right tools - but because they let them believe that the answer lay in those tools.

It never does. The answer lies in only one place - ourselves. And if we fail to recognize that, or to point it out to people - then we aren't doing our jobs.

The formula is simple - but executing it is hard. The sooner people realize that there's no such thing as a free ride... the sooner everyone starts moving ahead.

~Guy