By: D. A. Slinkard
I have decided that changes are coming to the year 2019, and I have gotten a lot of positive feedback. I appreciate everyone who takes the time out of their day to let me know the kind words and the impact the articles found in this newspaper are having all across north Alabama! May all the Glory go to God! I have been thinking about two words for the past couple of weeks and I have finally decided to put the words down on paper. Think about it — if you have something you want to accomplish, it is merely a dream until you write it down, and then it becomes a goal. The past few weeks I have been taking everything in, and I have decided to quit!
It really was a hard decision to make; after all, one thing my dad taught me was that the first time you quit, it is a hard decision to make. However, the more you make it a habit, the easier the decision becomes with each passing day. Eventually you get to the point you do not even think about what you are doing, and quitting in your life becomes second nature. My dad was right about quitting; the decision was tough, and I contemplated not even writing this down.
Even though I halfway thought it would be best not to openly admit “I quit,” that one sentence sends shock waves through my body simply because I have never been a quitter in my life. That is…until now. I wonder what people will think of me? Will you see me as the person who writes the motivating columns, or are you going to see me as a quitter? No holding back — let’s just get right down to it.
I quit…making excuses as to why I do not achieve the success levels that I want in 2019. For too long I have accepted mediocre results; I have allowed for the excuses to creep into my life. This will happen no more as I am going to make the conscious decision to own 2019 with my results.
I quit…not expecting the best from myself. For too long I have not held myself to the standard I need to be held accountable to. Truth be told, I am tougher on myself than what others are; but in 2019, I am going to step up my expectation levels in my life.
I quit…not making the right amount of effort to achieve my goals. I find that too often we do not make the necessary amount of effort to reach the levels of success that we have set as our goals. Too often we are just busy enough to say we are busy, and we end up wasting too much effort on non-essential things. Not going to happen to me in 2019.
I quit…not taking a high-energy level approach every day in 2019. How many times has someone asked you how you were doing and you sheepishly reply, “Good.” It is time to quit with the low-energy levels. We live in a society that has the lowest energy levels known to man. Think about all of the energy drinks out there or the energy pills…all of these things out there that are supposed to give us a boost in energy but causes many people to come crashing down.
I quit…having the wrong amount of focus. I believe we have a focus problem in our society being that we cannot focus on a goal or idea for longer than five minutes without losing interest. I think about the successful people in the past who have come before me, and they were a success because of the focus they had. We have a generation of people that want what their parents have; the only difference is it took the parents thirty years to obtain what the kids want tomorrow.
Here you have just some of my thoughts on the importance of quitting in 2019. I never would have thought I would be a quitter, but I decided that enough was enough. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result; well, I am trying a new approach for 2019 because the sky’s the limit for anyone reading this. Quit making excuses. Quit having low expectations of yourself. Quit making the wrong amount of effort. Quit having low energy. Quit having the wrong focus. Will you quit with me in 2019?
By: D. A. Slinkard
D.A. Slinkard is the manager of the Athens Staples store
