There are countless things in our lives that can overwhelm us, but there’s nothing quite like a crazy audacious goal to get the pressure up. One look at the mountain of a goal we’ve set for ourselves and we begin to question everything we’re about to do.
“Should I do this first or that?” “Is this a waste of time?” “What’s everyone else doing?” “Maybe I should just stop and quit now.”
We second guess ourselves and we overthink. Next thing we know, we’re paralyzed by anxiety over our actions and fear over the results. But every time a sense a paralysis coming, I would remember the book The One Thing by Gary Keller. In the beginning, Keller introduces the Domino Effect. Here’s an excerpt:
In 1983, Lorne Whitehead wrote in the American Journal of Physics that he’d discovered that domino falls could not only topple many things, they could also topple bigger things. He described how a single domino is capable of bringing down another domino that is actually 50 percent larger.
Do you see the implication? Not only can one knock over others but also others that are successively larger. In 2001 a physicist from San Francisco’s Exploratorium reproduced Whitehead’s experiment by creating eight dominoes out of plywood, each of which was 50 percent larger than the one before. The first was a mere two inches, the last almost three feet tall. The resulting domino fall began with a gentle tick and quickly ended “with a loud SLAM.”
Imagine what would happen if this kept going. If a regular domino fall is a linear progression, Whitehead’s would be described as a geometric progression. The result could defy the imagination. The 10th domino would be almost as tall as NFL quarterback Peyton Manning. By the 18th, you’re looking at a domino that would rival the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The 23rd domino would tower over the Eiffel Tower and the 31st domino would loom over Mount Everest by almost 3,000 feet. Number 57 would practically bridge the distance between the earth and the moon!
Imagine what would happen if this kept going. If a regular domino fall is a linear progression, Whitehead’s would be described as a geometric progression. The result could defy the imagination. The 10th domino would be almost as tall as NFL quarterback Peyton Manning. By the 18th, you’re looking at a domino that would rival the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The 23rd domino would tower over the Eiffel Tower and the 31st domino would loom over Mount Everest by almost 3,000 feet. Number 57 would practically bridge the distance between the earth and the moon!The whole picture can be scary, but we’ll get there eventually. We need only be willing to start small and to start patient. Right now, it’s as simple as picking that one domino to begin with.