Why is Action So Difficult?
Don’t be a wave…
Anyone who listens to their dream but does not do what it takes to reach it is like a wave being blown and tossed by the wind. We are convinced with reasons of why we shouldn’t act upon what we dream of or what we want to become. These reasons are certainly false, resulting in life long redundant internal battles that only pull us away from the life we really want.
Action is something that doesn’t come free, easy, or from the couch. It comes from an itch within us that lays down all doubt and rationalization, and puts on persistence and hunger to change the game.
A year ago I read Jonathan Field’s book Uncertainty where I quickly became convicted to act upon my thoughts among the doubt and uncertainty I kept telling myself. Leaning into uncertainty and embracing the fact that it doesn’t have to perfect to act on the first stepping stone toward where I want to be is a key thought process of making action easier. This opened my eyes to the world and results of action. I realized that uncertainty is actually a good thing to have when making things happen and pushing toward your dream. Jonathan Fields explains it perfectly by saying,
“The more certain you are of the answer or the outcome in advance, the more likely it is to have been done already and the less anyone will care, including you.”
With embracing uncertainty, doubts, and resistance it is easier to focus on each action step that can get us to where we want relationally, spiritually, mentally and a lot of the time in our career.
After giving up with the rationalization and the fear I realized that I started to do little things that pushed me to act without even noticing I was doing it. The best part, it’s fun! Here are some of the things that work.
Move Your Butt
Nothing gets done without moving your body. This is the first step in making things happen in your favor. Getting stuck in your comfort zone or couch is one of the biggest mistakes you can make if you want to get full potential out of your thoughts and aspirations. It will never start if you don’t start now, so move.
Sometimes we just don’t know what to do next. We get stuck with telling ourselves, “I don’t know what else to do or where to start?” Well, instead of listening to that and finding yourself sitting in front of the TV for hours, move your butt. Go. Think of a place where you might run into people who may have the similar interests and career path. You may see no value in this but physically moving your body consistently, when you don’t know what to do next, can create a forceful nature inside that increases your confidence, conversation ability, and actions in a habitual manner.
Genuine Relationship Hustle
Relationships are the core of everything we do from our career to our personal lives. Most of all we live off of relationships. The real foundation of genuine relationship hustle starts with focusing on people’s passions and ridding your intrests. Give and then give some more.
A little story about my experience with genuine relationship hustle started off with an email. Using email tactics from professionals such as Derek Halpern, founder of Socialtriggers.com, I reach out with an email and within 24 hours I got a response from the owner of an agency in the industry I saw myself in in the future. After a few quality emails passed back and forth I found myself near his new office one day. I acted quickly. I reached out again and asked if I could pop my head in to see the new place — very unsolicited — and ended up just chatting about his agency, his goals, and much more than my own selfish wants out of him.
A short time passed while staying in contact and I ended up getting lunch with him again and chatting more as a friend this time. All of this hustle lead to a spot on his companies intramural sports league team, which opens the sea to more relationships. This is relationship hustle, and it starts with being more than just looking for a job, but more in being genuine.
You must be willing to sacrifice your own selfish interests toward people and generate a want to create value for them by being human and focusing on how you can help them, which ultimately snow balls into a higher quantity of quality relationships.
Faith in Your Actions
You cannot discount your actions as useless. If you question what you are doing you are not being productive and effective. What you do must be meaningful to you and you must be consistent even if nothing seems to be happening right away. Mundane things may seem meaningless but analyze it and find the benefit in the mundane everyday things.If your conversations, relationships and actions seem justifiable to getting where you want to end up, you have to have faith that that will pay off and you are not acting in vein.
Faith and consistency in the right actions will give you steady feet to pounce on opportunities that may pass your way. With no faith, how can action be justified or reach its full potential to work for you? In order to see results you have to have a lunch pail, hard hat attitude by knowing everything but hesitation.
Learn to Pivot
Okay, I stole this one from Jonathan Fields. The reason why I stole it though is because I’ve seen it in my own life and actions. Having that faith in your actions opens your eyes to many other opportunities you should, and most importantly should not, act upon. This is where learning to pivot comes in.
Running into walls, obstacles and resistance can stunt growth and discourage more action. This is where many people stop and give up rather than finding a way over, through, or around the wall you hit — okay, I stole that from Michael Jordan.
Learning to pivot and acting on the right things that gets you through these walls is crucial when taking steps to where your vision is leading you. Pivot and proceed, you can’t just stop and give up… that’s what everyone else does. And like I say, don’t be another one because another one bites the dust.
Learning to act constantly will open so many business and life opportunities that will last for a lifetime if you treat it the right way. Be genuine and sincere, and most of all embrace uncertainty and keep plugging along. Nothing is built over night. We struggle with action because we compare ourselves rather than focusing our thoughts toward the correct actions that will get us to greatness.
