I expect some readers won’t like this one. At least, I HOPE they don’t. Because it’s my intention to get under your skin and irritate the hell out of you. Irritate you enough to stand up on your hind legs and CHANGE SOMETHING. NOW.

You should also be aware that in this article, I’m not talking to you; I’m talking to YOU. The inner you who knows how to actually get things done.

If you’re still reading, it means that you and YOU are in agreement on this.

So … here we go

All those books on the shelf behind you, all those CDs and DVD sets. And all those manuals from the seminars you’ve attended. Have you already gone through them?

If you have, then great! And now it’s time to pull down the things you’ve finished, put them into boxes and give them away.

The ideas, the concepts and the truths they contain – either they’re all inside you now, or they’re not. If they are, it’s way past time to forget the books and disks and to remember the truths. Time to start ACTing on the things you’ve been studying for so long. Note: emphasis here is on ACTion.

And if those truths you’ve been “studying” are NOT inside you, after all that expense, time and effort, either you need to get some NEW study skills, because your current ones aren’t working … OR you seriously need a new hobby, because anybody who tries to change for that long without results is just kidding themselves big-time.

You might try model trains or scrapbooking or tropical fish. In those hobbies also, you can spend as much time and money as you want, but the path to taking action and producing results is more direct, more obvious.

In fact, without action there isn’t any hobby, just as without action there isn’t any self improvement.

No Plan Involved

Now, this isn’t an action-plan type of post. This time there’s no step-1-step-2-step-3 stuff.

The folks who will do those steps have already been doing them for a while now.

And those who always skip over the step-by-step exercises would skip these, too.

This post will be short. That’s the good news. But by the time you finish reading, it’ll be glaringly obvious what to do. It’ll also be very, very clear to you whether you’re ever going to do ANYthing.

In other words, when you click away from here, you’ll either go straight out and do something to move you forward, or you’ll click to the next blog on your bookmark list and gather yet more information.

Okay, I understand that learning something and doing something are two different animals. But it’s time now for the DOing.

And I also understand that you may have studied so many concepts and techniques that by now you really don’t know which is the one you should use.

Well, if it’s that hard to choose among them, if there’s that little difference between them, then it doesn’t matter which you pick. Hell’s bells – throw a frickin’ dart. Just DO something.

If you get it wrong and make a mistake, that’s fine. In fact, it’s terrific. Because it’s way easier to correct a mistake than it is to correct nothing. And nothing’s what you’ve got until you take those first steps in some direction or other.

Just as a side comment, think forward to the next time you sit down with one of your books or DVDs, or you’re playing one of your many MP3s. Think forward to you sitting there listening or watching. What would happen if you suddenly realized intensely and vividly that you’re not DOing anything, that you’re just reviewing stuff you already know. And maybe you get this odd little tingle from thinking about taking some kind of small action.

What would happen if, from then on, that same pleasurable feeling of wanting to ACT popped up into your thoughts and circled, circled. Naturally, a reasonable amount of ACTion could satisfy the feeling, but not permanently. It’s good to know, isn’t it, that the desire to enjoy achieving might never desert you again.

So yes. What if …

From this point, we’ll leave behind the “don’t-DO-anything” folks, because they’ve already clicked away. Now it’s just you and me.

So tell me, why did you start studying this stuff anyway? What first triggered the idea that this might be something you could use? What did you originally want to get out of it?

Or were you “born into it,” born into a household where all this positive thinking, law of attraction stuff was standard fare? Born into a family where all this was like a State Religion?

But however you came to it, how often do you use it to solve your problems or to smooth out relationships? Correct your money problems? Keep healthy?

Apart from that, how EFFECTIVELY do you use it? What’s your success ratio?

And when you recommend your favorite author or technique to a friend, those inspiring success stories you tell, are they about you or about somebody else? Are you, yourself, getting the results you implicitly promise?

Don’t Answer Quite Yet

Now, you don’t have to stop and answer any of these questions if you don’t want. You don’t HAVE to – it’s strictly voluntary. It’s you who gets to decide whether you want results or RESULTS.

Of course, on the way to changing our lives, we often encounter a little thing called life – life as it already is, not as we wish it to be. And life can get busy. And messy. And it can sidetrack us like crazy.

Despite that, some people seem to plow right through every obstacle and diversion that life throws at them. I mean, people like that can’t be entirely human, can they? How the heck do they DO that, right?

Probably the most poignant thing a client has ever said to me was when Christine, a 41 year old, newly divorced mother of three said, “I don’t need to be a world beater. I just want to stop being such a loser.”

Now, that’s a worthy objective. A realistic and healthy step forward.

Yes, there are times and situations when it’s appropriate to dream sky-high dreams. When it’s right and proper to set your intentions so high you don’t know if you’ll ever be able to reach them.

But here’s a little secret: long before the giant steps and the world-changing goals, we need first to master the baby steps.

The biggest obstacle to getting started may be the feeling that “That’s beneath me. I should be doing the big stuff, not diminishing myself with the kiddy games.” In other words, it’s often simple shame that keeps us frozen in place.

Ever see a few girls get together and play jump-rope? Some of those kids are GOOD. They can find the right timing and step right into a double rope rhythm that’s going at breakneck speed.

If I were to try that, the only breaknecking would be mine.

And it’s because I don’t have the practice nor the skill to start there. I’d need a single rope and learn to do it veeeery slowly before stepping up a level. I might understand all about the theory of jumping rope. Might know the history and the names of all the star performers. But none of that translates out to DOing.

So if you can admit (quietly and privately) that despite your impressive bookshelf and all that knowledge, you’re still a beginner in terms of DOing (after all, it’s just you and me here), then you’ll have a clear, precise idea of where to start with your next project.

All of which puts you miles ahead of that guy with too much pride to relax and let himself be a beginner for a while.

And just begin.

Cheers from sunny Japan,
Charles

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