The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

For me this is another Grandmaism. I'll be honest with you, I did not understand what this meant until I was in college. she would say it to me frequently and as a kid just rolled my eyes, but not really understanding.

A light went on one day at school and I finally got it. Your intention doesn't matter. Yes you should always strive to do good, but in reality you should just do good.

What does this mean to me? Well I find that many of us talk about the things we want to do. For instance you may want to organize your garage, teach your kid about nature, get more exercise, etc. These are all fine intentions, but how many do you actually do?

Many self help gurus will tell you to tell someone or many someone's about what you want to do. I submit that if we all do this as a practice (and we do) how can anyone take that sort of admission seriously? Do you really think someone is going to ask you how your diet is going? No, they will say something if they notice you have lost weight though. The point is that you can only really be accountable to yourself. either you really want to make this change, do this activity or you don't. Telling people might help your conviction, but you have to really want to.

What about real obstacles? They exist and really should't prevent you, but only slow your progress while you determine another way to where you want to go, or lead to something even better, and gets you the same gratification.

For me it has been a long road to giving and volunteering. I love helping people, there was a time in my life that I felt like there was no help. In my young mind that was true, but in reality the people providing the help, I didn't know about or they weren't perceived as hep to me. I most certainly thought no one was standing up for me. Once I did get some help and perspective I vowed internally to stand up for those that don't feel like they can do it for themselves. I figured out that most people do not realize they are being mean or hurtful, but if you bring it to there attention they are appalled with their behavior and more than happy to makes amends.

I recall this time I worked for Qwest and one of the employees was mad about something trivial that was happening. she was loudly complaining about another manager in my hearing. This group of employees was very sensitive to us as managers talking about employees, but apparently it was ok to verbally abuse us for all to hear.The worst part in my mind is that the manager she was complaining about was her friend that had been promoted into management. However due to the current situation that required her management to come before her friendship, this employee felt like it was OK to disregard her feelings because in this office it was us and them.

I was infuriated and against may better professional judgment called this employee into a conference room and the following happened:
T- Listen, you are not required to like your boss. I am not required to like you. However we are required to act like the adults we are and work together. You get very incensed if you even think we as managers might be talking about one of you. In fact your feelings are hurt and we are required to make amends for even an imagined offense. Put yourself in my shoes. I cannot stand by and listen to you bad mouth a fellow manager. She has feelings just like you or I, she doesn't sit any farther from your desk than I do. She used to be your friend, has that changed?
Employee-no!
T- has it occurred to you that you might be hurting her feelings?
employee - look of complete surprise, followed by emotions of remorse.
T- I can't tell you what to do, but I will ask you to think about what your actions will do to someone else. Words have power, think about what you want to do with that powder before you use those words.

I was terrified doing this. I was about 24 and she was in her fifties. A far as she was concerned I was a snot nosed kid, but I was a manager and she was a subordinate. In the end she apologized to my fellow manager and was more conscious of what she said, to whom and at what volume.

I used to fantasize about the way I could have stood up for myself or someone else. Mostly I was afraid of what might happen. What I learned was that people will know that someone cares about them ands bullies will find out that we know them for who they are.

stop intending to do good things and just step through your fear and anxiety and see what happens.