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Don’t put things in before you try to take things out

Ever tried cramming just hours before an important exam? Even in the unlikely event that you pass, within a matter of days, all the evidence proves, you’ll hardly remember anything. This is just one example of what happens when you try to break the law. There are many ways of expressing this, the most powerful of universal laws. Here are just a few. “Whatsoever a man sows, that also shall he reap.” Sir Isaac Newton called it the third principle of motion. He said: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Earl Nightingale put it like this: “Your rewards in life are in direct proportion to your service.” And someone, nobody knows who, described this law as “what goes around, comes around”.¹

This law is the reason you have what you have right now. Which admittedly isn’t much. Although you might not like it, the plain truth is that what goes out from you in any form must ultimately come back to you. It’s just the way the universe works. By way of explanation, let’s imagine if a farmer tried to cram like you did for your exams. What if, instead of planting his crops at the right time of year, then carefully cultivating and caring for them in the following months until harvest, he simply stuck them in the ground just before they were due for reaping? What kind of crop could he expect? Yet you think you can break this universal law and get things out without putting a blasted thing in.

The best time to ignore this law is at the start of anything new. Get very impatient in the early stages of growth. You don’t want to wait, you want it now, now, now, or even sooner than that. Go on, allow yourself to be depressed because the growth appears slow or non-existent. Don’t remember that the farmer who plants his seeds must wait for them to take root. You don’t see the farmer constantly digging up his seed to see whether it’s sprouted, but you should constantly tear up your plans before they’ve been properly tested, charging off in the direction of yet another get-rich-quick scheme or overnight success (both of which you’ll never find because, just like a free lunch, there is no such thing). And if you don’t go looking for where the grass is greener, unlike the farmer, you must stand idly by and wait for things to happen. Whatever you do, don’t tend the crop by watering and weeding. Don’t nurture your crop in any way you can. Ignore Rudyard Kipling who said: “Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.”

“Get very impatient in the early stages of growth. You don’t want to wait, you want it now, now, now, or even sooner than that.”

By the way, there is another universal law that sits alongside that of “you only get out what you put in”. This law is based on the principle that nature abhors a vacuum. It states: “If you want something better, first get rid of what you’ve already got.” Let me explain. At the back of one house we lived in was a paddock where the previous owners used to keep a horse. They hadn’t had the horse for many years and had let the paddock become disused. The whole area was overrun with weeds, nettles, thistles and grass up to your waist. I thought, one day, when I’ve got the time and the money, I’ll turn that paddock into a fantastic playground for my kids. I’ll get rid of all the weeds and have the whole thing turfed with beautiful green grass. Yet there it sat for nearly two wasted years while I waited to have enough money to change it.

At the time this retired guy, called John, once a week would pop by and do a few jobs in the garden for me. I had happened to mention to John, in passing, my long-term vision for the paddock. Low and behold, I returned home a few days later to find the whole paddock cleared. John had just gone ahead and done it. Well, they do say that the best people realise that, to get things done, it’s always better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. As I stood in the middle of the paddock, it was amazing, now that everything had been cut down, how much easier it was to imagine what the finished thing would look like. Then it dawned on me that John had put the universal principle to work by ‘making space’. Suddenly it seemed that it would be that much easier to complete the job because we’d first got rid of what we didn’t want. Because we’d created a space, I was much more motivated to fill it. Still, I’ve got to admit, I was concerned that it would be ages before I could get around to laying the grass. Then I bumped into John again. I thanked him for the work he’d done in the paddock. He told me that although I’d not asked him to do this either, he’d now measured up the land and got a quote for turfing the whole area. It was less than I thought but still too much. Then John says: “Of course, if I was you, I’d only lay the turf a bit at a time between now and the summer. I could do that for you, it would be a lot cheaper and you’d only have to pay me a bit at a time.” What a brilliant solution. This new idea would never have occurred if first we hadn’t rid ourselves of the old.

If you don’t like those kitchen curtains, just sit there and put up with them. Don’t take them down and give them away. Or don’t go to your wardrobe and ruthlessly pull out everything you don’t wear, or hate, and give them away. Remember, until you create space for the new, it will never turn up. So not clearing things out will ensure that you get to continue to dress like a failure. (If you were, for some bizarre reason, to ignore my advice, a remarkable thing would happen. It wouldn’t be long before your wardrobe was full of clothes again. The difference being it would be full of clothes you couldn’t wait to wear.)

This principle also applies to your mind. You can’t take in a new way of thinking about life, work and everything without letting go of your old way of thinking. To move on, you must get rid of the clutter. So don’t, whatever you do, cut down the weeds in your paddock.

¹ Probably Mark Twain again .