Get Started.

We thought the water park wasn’t so far away from the Chicago hotel we were calling home for a few days. I was about 13 years old and I was the navigator. I held the map while Mom drove us to the amusement park. It started taking longer and our directions weren’t making sense.

This was 1992, so I was holding a paper map that would never be folded back along its original creases. There wasn’t a GPS to talk to us or a blue dot on the Google Maps app on an iPhone to show us we were on track.

And, you know, turns out I was holding the map upside down. We were aiming toward fun and we ended up miles in the wrong direction.

That can happen in life.

You have to know where you are before you start. So take notice of the people and places in your story. Make a list of your goals and dreams, you know, your destinations. And then add some directions, as in what steps you can take toward those places you want to be.

Don’t wait until you can retire from a job you dread to seek your dream job.

Don’t wait until you have more money to bless others.

Don’t wait until everything around you is perfect because, well, it never will be.

And don’t settle for what everyone else is doing.

“The average path is the easier of the two paths, and it’s dangerously comfortable. I spent many years on it without realizing I’d been there a week. The awesome path? It is dangerous too — but the good kind of dangerous. The kind of dangerous through which all great accomplishments must travel. On it are tall mountains, rocky walls, and even an occasional dragon. You’re going to get bloodied, your discipline will be tested, and your dreams will be challenged a thousand times over. But ohhhh, it is awesome. And here’s the kicker: when I say it’s awesome, I don’t mean “eventually” awesome. I’m talking right-this-second awesome.”

{Jon Acuff in “Start“}

And, really, don’t wait. Yes, make sure you aren’t holding the map upside down. Let the modern GPS speak to you. Talk to people you trust and, more importantly, seek the ultimate map maker who managed to create the world in seven days. Your amusement park is waiting. Get started. It’s going to be awesome.