Burn Your Ships

What could you do if retreat wasn't an option?

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"Commitment is an act, not a word.” -Jean-Paul Sartre

In 711 AD, Tariq ibn Ziyad led a force of 7,000 troops across the Strait of Gibraltar to conquer the Iberian Peninsula — now Spain and Portugal. Upon landing, he ordered all their ships to be burned. Standing before his troops, who must have watched their vessels burn with awe and terror, he delivered a powerful truth: "Behind you is the sea, before you, the enemy. You have no choice but to win or to die."

The Thing About Comfort Zones...

I thought about this the other day while staring at my laptop screen. We all do this dance, right? We keep one foot in our old life while thinking about the life we could be living.

-That job promotion we're not sure we are ready for.
-That business idea we keep playing with.
-The lifestyle change we know we need to make.

We tell ourselves we're being clever by keeping our options open, but let me ask you something: How's that working out for you? What real progress have you made?

The Truth About "Someday"

Can I be honest with you? I spent years - and I mean years - drawing up these perfect plans for "someday." Sound familiar? I kept thinking someday I'll…

…write my book
…start a coaching practice
…get my story out to the audience that I was called to serve
…live the life I actually want to live

But here's what I've learned: someday is just another word for never. Comfort has a clever way of making us feel like we're making progress when we're actually just standing still.

Let's Talk About Real Change

Look, I get it. The idea of burning your ships - of cutting off your escape routes - sounds terrifying. But what if you started small? Here's what I'm doing, and perhaps one of these will resonate with you:

• Pick one "backup plan" that's holding you back. Mine was not sharing my ideas with the world because I was worried about what people would think.

• Choose one comfort habit to break this week. I decided I couldn’t build the life I wanted with so much time wasted on TV.

• Find someone further along and ask them to coach and mentor you. I got tired of going it alone, so I paid for professional coaching, which has made all the difference in my mindset.

No Regrets

You know what keeps me up at night? All the times I’ve played it safe and not colored outside the lines. It's the thought of reaching the end of my life and realizing I never really went for it.

Have you ever really gone for it? Or have you kept your ships safely in the harbor, pristine and perfectly maintained, but without any battle scars?

Mark Batterson captures this idea so well when he says,

“In every dream journey there comes a moment when you have to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death.”¹

Do you want your eulogy to read something like, “Tarek didn’t make many mistakes, he played it safe, and died with a bunch of stuff.”

I don’t.

So here's an invitation for both of us:

Burn one ship today. Just one. It doesn't have to be dramatic - no actual fire is required! But let's make one decisive move that says, "I'm serious about this new direction." Because that future you dream about? It's waiting on the other shore. And the only way to get there is to eliminate the retreat option.

What ship are you ready to burn? Leave a comment below. I'd love to hear your story and help light the match.

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I could have chosen other military commanders from history who burned their boats, but I selected the man who shares my name. He also has a mountain named after him. I don’t care about having a mountain, a bridge, or a building named after me. The “mountain” I want to build will be reflected in the lives I’ve been privileged to impact and change for the better—people who have awakened to their highest potential and are living the lives they were always meant to live.

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