‘When’ is one of those words that fills me with dismay, because it implies a condition. We can do this when such and such; you can have this when so and so. Primarily it dismays me because its inclusion means ‘not now’. It means ‘some time in the future’. By nature I am a procrastinator, and it is something that has occasionally driven people to distraction as I have delayed some vital task until a time when……

For years I said that I would grow my own food when….pay fewer bills when…..spend more time living and less time working when……. and then I realised that left to its own devices, ‘when’ would never arrive. It is just a convenient way of pushing sometimes hard decisions off into the future. So I made those things happen without the help of ‘when’, and discovered that if you stop talking of things that might happen when, and begin to think of them happening, they do.

Simply shortening your statement from ‘we’ll build this when’ to ‘we’ll build this’, is more than a matter of semantics, it signals a fundamental change in your mindset. Once there are no conditions set, things start to happen.

Here’s an example. We knew we wanted to do certain things here on the farm. Build a classroom; be self sufficient in electricity. We had no idea how, and then a relative kindly who passed made a bequest to Claire. So for a while it became our condition. We’ll do this when the money comes, we’ll do that when the money comes. But these things can take a long time, and nothing happened, and time passed. Then we had a change in attitude, and it became ‘we’ll build this’.  Well…

here’s that building, and so far the money didn’t arrive. We found other ways, because we had to build. It was a fact, not a ‘when’. I could give countless other examples, from great big ones to little everyday ones.

I’m not suggesting that there is some incredible guarateed way to get things done, rather that it is my experience that when our attitude is direct and one of simply doing something, rather than wanting to do something, or wishing to do something – things happen. It is a subtle change, but one that I would urge people to adopt.  It could change your life.