Follow Through

If success is the intersection of mindset and action, then follow through is the cornerstone of that action. Of course, how you define “success” and what that means to you is entirely up to you. But, in the context of personal growth, becoming your best self and the person you were meant to be, achieving your goals, and realizing your dreams (i.e., seizing your passion), success is ultimately determined by whether or not you follow through.

Take any sport, for example. The follow through of the action — the kick, the swing, the stride, the stroke — more than any other factor is what determines the trajectory of the action. Whether the action is kicking, hitting, swinging, throwing, or catching a ball or whether the action of the sport has no physical object involved like running or swimming. Either way, it is not the initial impact of the action itself that determines the fruitfulness or success of the desired end result of that action, but rather it is the follow through of the swing, the kick, the throw, the stride, or the stroke that does.

The same concept can and should be applied in all areas of life: in our relationships, in business, and most definitely in realizing our dreams! When we don’t follow through in our relationships — with our commitments, our promises, our support and our love — the relationship inevitably deteriorates and crumbles. As parents, when we don’t follow through with our word — the rules we set, the threats or promises we make — we lose credibility, trust, and authority. And so too in business, when we don’t follow through with a client, an interview, a prospect, or a sale — we lose.

When it comes to realizing our dreams and fulfilling our true potential, the follow through of our actions as the determining factor of our success may not be as clearly defined, but it is equally true. Seizing your passion, realizing your dreams, and achieving your own personal growth takes a certain mindset, then implementation and action, and then follow through. When we stop following through, even if we had the right mindset and took the initial action, the dream we once had fizzles, the goals we set out for ourselves fade, and our growth is suspended. There is no doubt about it; follow through determines our trajectory.

Here’s the amazing thing about follow through, though. You can change the course of that trajectory mid-action and as you go. The reality of life is that when we’re young, we are full of piss and vinegar, ready and eager to conquer the world. We have the right mindset and take the requisite inspired action to do so. But then, life happens — we get older, we have more responsibilities, practical considerations, we acquire new and other passions and goals. The problem is that instead of just changing the course of our initial action and our trajectory in order to accommodate and make room for all the other stuff in our life that we want and need, we just stop that initial action. We don’t continue to follow through, even if in a different direction. We completely tune off, shut out and stop listening to our most inner core self that was so hell bent on conquering the world.

But, there is room for it all and we don’t have to stop listening and stop following through. We can still conquer the world within the life we’ve built for ourselves. It may not look exactly like what we thought it would like back when we were full of that piss and vinegar; the course of that trajectory may have changed and shifted, but the foundation of why we initially took that inspired action remains the same.

The key is to listen to what it was that brought you alive back then, why it brought you alive, and figure out how to incorporate that into your life today. That’s follow through. Follow through on becoming the person you were meant to be, even if it doesn’t look like what you initially thought it would look like. And the beautiful part of that kind of follow through is that there is no end. You can continue to follow through forever because there is always room for more growth, more dreams, and more of becoming your best self.

#SeizeYourPassion!

P.S. You can watch the live stream video that this blog was based on here