Did you ever hear the story about the police officer that was chasing a young man who had committed a serious crime? He was tall and fast and the officer chased him through an alley, over a dumpster and through a convenience store. As the story goes, when the man jumped over a 12' cinder block wall the officer felt he had no choice but to go over it too. Just as the officer was clearing the wall the young man looked back and seeing that the officer had cleared the wall laid down, threw his arms out in front of him and yelled, "I'm not running any more".

Once the officer had the man in cuffs and he asked him why he had stopped running. The answer? "When you cleared that wall I could see in your eyes that you would never give up". To which the officer replied, "When you cleared that wall I thought you would never give up".   

So the lesson is the brick walls that block our way in life are there for a reason - to show us how much we want something. Those who achieve their goals most often do so because they are willing to do what others won't do. If you find you've hit a wall, ask yourself how much you want what lies on the other side. The wall may be telling you to try harder. The wall may be telling you to stop. But make no mistake, it's telling you something. You just need to take notice and whatever you do don't just run into it. We've had times when we seem to just keep bumping into the wall over and over...or like the other saying; we continue to bang our heads against the wall.  Not too smart is it?

Walls whether made of concrete or not serve a purpose.  They are for containment of some type. Never does it make sense to repeatedly bump into them. The key is in making a decision to stay on the side you're on, go around the wall or go over it. And while volumes and volumes of book and papers are written on this very subject, I'm only going to focus on the decision part.

I like the story above because it clearly demonstrates that if you know what you're chasing and why you're chasing it, a quick decision is easy. The problem is rarely are things so clear. But it can be clearer if we take a little time and define what we're chasing and why more often. Of course this assumes that you're chasing something! We are all chasing something, but we may not be aware of what it is.  Or if we're aware of what we're chasing we may not know why we're chasing it.  

If I had to choose only one attribute that the most successful people I know have it is the ability to make decisions. Notice I didn't say good decisions. Bad decisions are ok too, because they can be changed. It's the people who have trouble making any decisions that have the hardest time.  I think my father tried to teach me that lesson when as a child he frequently said to me, "Don't think, and just do."  Now he wasn't always being nurturing when espousing that statement, but it probably helped me decide to go over, go around or stay on my side of a lot of "walls".  How do you react when you come up against a wall?