If you want to take the island, burn the freaking boats!
I heard this quote recently, and I haven’t been able to shake it from my head since. It’s a single sentence that perfectly captures the reason for so many of our failed endeavors. We want to take the island, but we leave the boats in harbor just in case plan A doesn’t work out. The problem? We fight a much different battle on the island when we know the boats are waiting for us in harbor. A battle we’re much more likely to lose.
The obvious place this applies is in business, but I see it in habit formation as well. Take quitting drinking, or taking a break from drinking, as an example. This becomes a goal for a lot of people at some point in their life. Yet they’ll leave certain clauses in their mental agreement that destine them for failure from day one. It could be something like “I’m allowed two drinks per weekend”, or “I’ll have a drink in social situations just to not make it awkward”.
Clauses like these kill the goal before it has even gotten started. If you leave the boats in harbor, you will not take the island. If you really wanted to quit drinking you’d pour every ounce in your house down the drain and burn the damn boats.
This metaphor becomes an incredible tool for reviewing our own lives. We can reflect on our own habits and ask ourselves if we’re really all-in on them.
Have the boats been burned?
We can reflect on areas of our life that aren’t working out very well or need improvement.
Have the boats been burned?
We can reflect back on previous events in an effort to learn from them.
Had the boats been burned?
Most importantly, the next time we come across that nudge to grow...
Burn the freaking boats. It’s the only way to take the island.