Action Is Not Enough

If I had a nickel for every personal development seminar I’ve been at, I would have a lot of nickels! Every speaker states somewhere in their presentation that you must take “action”! well, I am here to say that that is not good enough.

Ask an average person today how they are doing. Chances are they will say, “I’m busy”. In my estimation, most of those people are just busy being busy! Mucking around for two hours a day on Facebook does not qualify as work. You see, most of us confuse being productive with being busy!

Just as busy relates to productive, so “action” relates to “inspired” action. Let’s look at the definition of inspired:

To affect, guide, or arouse by divine influence. Or

To fill with enlivening or exalting emotion

I believe the key word in the definition is emotion. For example, I see many people in the gym every day. They are taking a lot of action. However, very few are taking “inspired” action. What emotions are they putting behind their workout? I can tell you right off, they are not good. They may be peddling the bike, but they are thinking thoughts like:

*Is this over yet?

*This hurts

*This track is too long

*My knees hurt

*and on and on

The reason I know these thoughts is that they tell me afterwards! Now, if their goal was to lose weight and get fit, how do you think their body was reacting while they were exercising? It was not in a lose weight mode for sure! I can tell you this is mainly true. Just go to the gym. Pick out a person you constantly see on a treadmill or bike that is overweight. They come back constantly and never lose weight! I see many at the gym like that. There body may be “taking” action, but their mind is keeping them in the same (or worse) state.

Here is another example that I know of. It is a typical scenario played out every day in every country at lunch time. Now, I am not picking on women to be clear! A woman walks in a restaurant and looks at the menu board. What she wants is the hamburger. What she knows she should have is the chicken salad. An internal struggle ensues. Bad vs. good starts up in their head. Begrudgingly, she picks the salad. Now, all during the meal, she is resenting this choice, therefore putting her body in a bad state. When your body goes into that state, it puts out a chemical called cortisol, which keeps your body fat. How many people do you know that take actions like eating salads and never lose weight.

I can verify this in my own weight loss journey. I tried to lose weight for over 5 years, with no luck. I ran, exercised, took supplements, and even hired a personal trainer. Still no weight loss. It was not until I was inspired that I lost 90 lbs! I was taking “inspired” action! I had an end goal in mind and I applied a truckload of emotion to the action.

Now, applying this to your business goals, what actions are you taking?

Writing articles?

Posting to Facebook?

Email marketing?

Face to face selling?

What thoughts are going through your head while doing each task? I have seen (and done) three scenarios:

1.) The multi-tasker - This person wants to do many things at one time. Gotta get things done! I am too busy, need to do more. What happens (whether or not you are male or female!) is that you end up doing 10 things half way (I cleaned that up!). While you are doing one thing, you are trying to divide your brain to do others. No focus. No productivity. No emotion. No superior results!

2.) Action with bad thoughts - This person will just literally go through the motions. Just do the work to get it done. Make a post, send it out with spelling errors. Just so it is done. All the while, they are thinking bad thoughts like:

Why do I have to do this?

This doesn’t make sense!

Is it lunch time yet?

Wonder what time I can leave today?

This won’t get me any sales!

Do you think any of these thoughts will help? It is a conflict. The thoughts will show up in your work!

3.) A combination of 1 & 2 - This will be a disaster!

Now that I sprayed all of this bad news, what do we do?

I have done these things:

1.) Have clear goals

2.) Write out index cards with affirmations and read several times a day

3.) Listen to motivational Cds

4.) Limit my tasks to one task at a time. (there are actually companies that only allow their employees to have one thing on their desk at a time! - Metro Bank in PA for one)

5.) Think about the positive outcome while doing the task.

What I have discovered in the past week is this. Self Hypnosis. I was receiving Joe Vitale’s emails and he recommended his friend Steve G. Jones for hypnotherapy. This has been a great help in achieving inspired action. Now, I did not become transformed overnight. I have made my own nighttime scripts and have been listening for about 2 weeks.

I have purchased 25 titles. Some are:

Abundance

Unlimited Wealth

Prosperity

Sales Mastery

I have been feeling really good during my work day. I seem to have more energy and do actually feel inspired.

I hope this inspired you to take inspired action today!