Eternal vigilance …

The price of freedom

There’s a saying that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. And that’s certainly true. We’ve seen it most dramatically in fairly recent history with the rise of the Nazi threat in Germany in the last century. If the world had been watching more carefully and with more interest that threat might have been nullified before it reached huge and horrifying proportions. As it was, the world paid a different price – a world war that saw millions dead and catastrophic destruction worldwide. That’s the way it goes … if you’re not prepared to pay one price you’ll end up paying another, and it might well be a higher one.

Eternal vigilance on the personal level

It doesn’t just apply to world affairs. On an individual level, the price of success is eternal vigilance as well. And if you’re not prepared to pay that price you’ll pay another, and the chances are it will be a far more difficult pill to swallow. If you want to lose weight, it’s important to stay aware of what you eat. I don’t mean you should become obsessive, just alert. That little snack, when you’ve already eaten quite enough, might seem harmless and inconsequential. But those little snacks rarely travel alone, they tend to follow on the heels of one another. Before you know it, all your weight loss efforts are for nothing.

Same goes for saving money. You’re determined to cut your outgoings so you make a plan and you stick to it … more or less. But that mid-morning coffee at Costa or Starbucks seems like such a tiny deviation from your plan. I mean … a cup of coffee! One of those each day at work can end up making quite a hole in your savings plan. Work it out. Eternal vigilance …

Gaining weight? Then it’s important to increase your calorie intake. Doesn’t make much difference how hard you train if you don’t give your body the nutritional means to grow. So you make a plan … you eat smaller meals, but more of them. And you make sure they’re of a certain quality, and really tasty as well. Everything’s going well. Then, after a while, you start missing a meal here and there. Doesn’t seem that important, you’re training hard anyway. Then you notice you’re not seeing any gains. You’ve hit a plateau and nothing’s changing, even though you’re at the gym regularly and training like a man possessed. Ah … eternal vigilance …

You’ve decided you’ve had enough of all that slack talk and you want to put a stop to it. All the casual cursing and swearing, all the negative self talk, even the non-words that litter your vocabulary, the um’s and er’s, the y’know’s and the y’know worra mean’s. You think it’s time to be a little more grown up about these things so you start to work on forming a new habit, one of speaking more carefully and less lazily. And you soon see a difference (and no doubt so do others), but then, after a week or so you start to slip back into your old ways. It’s understandable. There’s nothing like the comfortable feel of an old pair of slippers, and you slip back into your old ways just like putting them back on after a hard day’s work. A week or two later you suddenly become aware that you sound exactly like you used to. Here we go again … eternal vigilance …

Take your eyes off the prize and risk losing ground

Whatever it is you’re engaged in, there’s always the danger of slipping backwards. All your hard work hangs by a thread, dependent on one thing … eternal vigilance. You take your eyes off the prize and pretty soon, without even noticing, you’re losing ground. Maybe even going backwards. So what can be done about it?

Since it can affect each and every thing you’re engaged in, it’s probably worth spending a few moments working on a solution. And one way is to make it a project in itself. You could set out to make it a habit to stay alert from now on, to keep your mind focused and your concentration sharp. It won’t happen overnight; like everything else, you’ll probably forget all about it from time to time. But stick with it. It’s worth it, since success in this can mean success in so many other things. This really is a key skill. Write something down about it. Make a few post-it type notes and put them where you can’t fail to see them. Keep reminding yourself to stay focused. Stay alert. Remain eternally vigilant!

Force yourself back on track whenever you stray from it, and remind yourself of the importance of mastering this one skill. Make sure you stick with it for at least a few weeks. If you do that it will have most likely become a proper ingrained habit. And you can start reaping the rewards of it immediately. If you need a little motivation to keep you on track remind yourself that if you don’t pay this price, of forcing yourself to create this new habit, then you’ll end up paying another one, and it won’t be one that brings a smile to your face. You’ll be left where you where, making little or no progress on so many things, simply because you failed to grasp the importance of eternal vigilance.