If you’ve been to a garden center or nursery lately, you know it’s planting time.  People from all walks of life take a time each spring to roll up their sleeves and get dirt under their fingernails, planting seeds and starters they hope will bloom into a beautiful summer and rewarding fall harvest. 

Animals, insects, and even a few no-so-dumb humans know that spring is also the time to cultivate success.  We had all winter to reflect and dream – now it’s time to get going! 

If your goal is weight loss, start your new daily morning walk tomorrow.  If you want a better job, post your resume up on Monster and those other job boards, no more excuses.  Relationship issues?  Plan a romantic getaway this weekend.  After all, spring is for romance, too.

Having problems getting started?  Here’s an excerpt from my book, Success for Life, which will help cultivate a new you.

Repetition is not the same thing as persistence.  Thinking the same thoughts and taking the same actions over and over isn’t going to change a darn thing. Tenacity isn’t about beating your head against the same point on the wall every day, in the hope that eventually the wall will crack.  No, there are other words for describing that: “plain dumb.”

Speaking of plain dumb, a friend of mine had a dog, one of those big, hairy, gray-and-white old English sheepdogs.  Each morning, Jack would open the front door to let the dog outside, and each morning, without fail, the dog would race through the door, full-speed, and crash head-on into the riding lawn mower parked in front of the house!

My friend thought the dog would learn his lesson after nearly busting his skull open on the first hit. But no, the next day, and the next, and the one after that, the pattern repeated itself. Door opens, dog rushes out, near concussion.  Eventually, Jack had to move the mower.

Now to smart folks like us, it’s obvious this isn’t persistence. It’s stupidity (though, I guess the dog eventually got what he wanted). If it’s so obvious, then, why do I see otherwise intelligent people doing exactly the same thing every day?  Why, when faced with a challenge, do some people throw themselves at it, in a full-frontal assault, again and again, instead of trying to find a route around, over, or even under?

Go on, admit it.  How many times have you vowed to: stop getting riled by your boss, stop acting jealous, quit nagging the kids, save more money, start that diet one more time, change your job, spend more time with the family, really use that gym membership, work smarter, say “no” more often and drink less – or any one of the above?

And despite those promises to yourself, how many times do you find yourself stressing over the same things every night, hitting the same brick walls, and consistently finding yourself falling back into the same old patterns of behavior that caused you to fail the first time around?

Maybe we’re not so different from that dumb dog after all.

There’s no time to waste obsessing about the time you’ve lost or your bad choices in the past.  Spring has sprung, okay?  It’s time for a new start.  WAKE UP AND PLANT THE ROSES!  You can’t enjoy the sweet smell of success unless you plant the seeds.  Make new habits and contacts – good ones, with real potential, which will bring you happiness and success. 

 I can’t WAIT to see you BLOOM!