Your Actions Are A Prayer

Your actions are a prayer.

By Zachary Phillips.

Your actions are a prayer to the gods of functionality.

Your mind,

Your body,

Your spirit.

Honor them.

Wake early.

Sit in silence.

Then move.

Attend the iron church.

Or run.

Or dance.

The gods smile upon those who act.

You are what you do.

So study your craft.

Work on your craft.

Share your craft.

You are what you do.

So study your craft.

Work on your craft.

Share your craft.

Take criticism and praise in the same breath.

You are neither as good or as bad as they say.

You are neither as good or as bad as they say.

Embrace the daily grind.

Work when nobody's looking.

Work when nobody cares.

Work when you are doubting yourself.

Work because to you,

Work is play.

Push through all resistance.

The lights are never all green.

There is always a reason to stop.

Don't.

Push through all the resistance.

The lights are never all green.

There is always a reason to stop.

Don't.

Your actions are a prayer.

You are what you do.

You are what you do.

So act like the best version of you.

This is the true power of faking it until you make it.

Of embodying your true calling.

Of greatness.

This change will take time.

There is a lag between action and reward.

This change will take time.

There is a lag between action and reward.

And when it does come,

It won't be announced with fanfare.

Growth will be incremental.

Small gains.

Tiny improvements.

Minute advancements.

This is as it should be.

So act.

Act as a prayer to the gods of functionality.

And have faith.

Faith in the process.

Faith in the future.

Faith in yourself.

And remember,

You are what you do.

You are what you do.

It's all too easy to look down upon yourself.

To see how far you've got to go before you attain whatever it is that you're striving to attain.

It seems like a far better approach.

Rather than just aiming for the goal and then letting it go.

It's a far better approach to embrace the process.

If the goal is the top of a mountain,

Why not make the journey up the mountain as enjoyable as possible?

Why not embrace that journey?

Why not look to that journey as a holy pilgrimage?

Not just something to trudge through.

Not just something to endure.

Your actions are a prayer.

You'll be rewarded or punished based on what you do.

I'm not talking here about a calmer style of reward.

I'm not even talking about anything spiritual or mystical here.

I'm talking about basic cause and effect.

If you meditate,

If you exercise,

If you practice self-care,

If you consume positive words and good foods,

If you avoid toxins,

And if you surround yourself with the people you want to become,

You will see improvement.

It's bound to happen.

But if your actions are toxic,

Your life will devolve and become toxic itself.

Your actions are a prayer,

And God's smile upon those who act.

There is a saying that successful people are lucky,

Or that happy people are lucky,

Or that healthy people are lucky.

But really,

The successful,

The healthy,

The happy,

A lot of the time,

They've made their luck.

And they made their luck by taking action daily.

They instill morning discipline.

They instill the discipline to get up early,

To eat and to drink well,

To exercise,

To meditate,

To learn and to grow.

They take the action for self-improvement,

And they do it daily.

True,

Luck plays a massive part in where they start from,

But they are the ones that take action from there.

They balance who they are with actions to take them towards who they are going to be,

Towards who they are going to become.

They balance the now with the journey up the mountain.

It's important to realize that you are what you do.

I'm talking here to the artists,

The writers,

The dancers,

The poets,

The meditators and the creators,

The photographers and the entrepreneurs.

Any sort of thing,

If you are doing it,

You are it.

There is no timeframe or level of success or external criteria that says,

Yes,

You're now that thing.

I'm a poet.

Why?

Because I write poetry.

What are you?

You are what you are because of what you do.

You are what you do.

So each day,

Study your craft,

Work on your craft,

Share your craft,

Embrace the process.

And remember that there's always going to be people who criticize you.

There's always going to be people who will try and tear you down and bring you down to their level.

They are people that are not walking towards the mountain.

They are the people that are stuck in a comfortable rut.

They are the people that may be somewhat toxic for you.

These are the people that will draw you down and turn you away from your journey,

Your path,

Your goal.

Similarly though,

Praise can also be intoxicating.

So it's important to remember to take criticism and praise in the same breath and to remember that you're neither as good or as bad as what people tell you are.

But regardless,

Regardless of what you're here or what people say or what they're doing around you,

Just go.

Just take action.

Just move.

Just embrace the daily grind.

Work when no one's looking,

When no one cares.

Work when you are doubting yourself and make sure that that work is play.

But what do I mean by work as play?

If you don't like what you're doing for a job and you get up for it every day,

It's a struggle.

It's not a pleasurable experience and over time it will wear you down.

It will beat you down.

Now realistically,

No matter what you choose to do,

There will always be negative aspects of whatever you decide.

I'm not talking about that.

I'm more talking about moving your work as a whole towards your passion.

Taking small steps at first,

But if you start veering towards making work your passion,

Making your work your play,

Going down more and more focused paths to a joyful experience,

In 10 years you'll find that you will be on a completely different trajectory.

But if you don't take action,

If you don't take those steps towards making work play,

In 10 years time you'll be in exactly the same place.

That's not ideal at all.

And when you start making those changes to either turn your work into play or to develop like a side hustle or to do your artwork or whatever it is that you're doing,

Realize that the time to start is now.

Every successful,

Talented person that you've ever heard of,

They didn't have it easy.

In order to rise to greatness,

They had to act.

They had to act through all of the resistance happening in their lives.

From the external perspective,

We only see the end result.

We see the final product.

We see them at the finishing line,

The highlight reel.

But we don't see the private stuff.

We don't see their inner demons or their family conflicts,

The internal challenges and the financial struggles.

We don't see their doubt.

We see none of that.

We only see the results.

So when you're successful and people say that you're lucky or that you just had it handed to you,

You'll be able to say,

Hey,

I pushed through.

We all pushed through.

Remember,

The lights are never all green.

There's always a reason to stop.

So don't.

It's time to act like the best version of ourselves.

There's this talk about faking it until you make it.

Now,

This phrase has a lot of value if it's interpreted properly.

I'm not talking about faking an attitude or projecting a false personality or pretending like you're something that you're not.

No,

I'm talking about faking your habits,

Faking your actions until you make them.

So someone who will be successful will get up every morning.

They'll exercise daily.

They'll meditate daily.

They will take the actions necessary to improve themselves.

They will research the important documents.

They'll study.

They will grind.

Fake those behaviors until you make it.

If you can fake those positive habits until you make those positive habits a part of your life,

You are well on the way to success.

And that success will be real.

Really,

That's how you instill a positive habit anyway.

It's about trying them out until they stick.

So fake it until you make it.

Wake early,

Meditate,

Exercise,

Study.

Do what you have to do to become the person you were going to become.

And just remember the person that you were going to become,

The person who will enable you to embody your dreams and your calling,

The person who will enable you to be great.

It's important to remember that to become that person that those changes will take time.

This growth will take time.

There is a lag between your actions and the rewards for those actions.

I mean,

It would be folly to expect that if you were to do one day of exercise,

That you would immediately notice the changes and the gains.

But if you exercised every day for three months,

You will certainly see some changes.

This analogy is applicable to everything in life,

From meditation to self-improvement to work to study to technical skills to practice to everything.

There is a lag between actions and rewards.

When these rewards come,

They will be small,

Incremental,

Minute at first.

But over time,

They will accumulate,

They will grow and they will compound.

And you'll get into the groove.

You will get into an action sequence and you will start to win.

So act.

Take the actions you need to and just have some faith.

Faith that the actions,

The processes that you are taking,

Will lead to a positive future,

Will lead you to where you want to go,

Will lead you to the top of the mountain.

And also,

Make sure that the journey to the top of that mountain is enjoyable because that journey is your life.

Remember,

You are what you do.

Your actions are a prayer.

Your actions are a prayer to the gods of functionality.

Your mind,

Your body,

Your spirit,

Honour them.

Wake early.

Sit in silence.

Then move.

Attend the iron church or run or dance.

The gods smile upon those who act.

The gods smile upon those who act.

You are what you do.

So study your craft.

Work on your craft.

Share your craft.

Take criticism and praise in the same breath.

Take criticism and praise in the same breath because you are neither as good or as bad as they say.

Embrace the daily grind.

Work when nobody's looking.

Work when nobody cares.

Work when you are doubting yourself.

Work because to you,

Work is play.

Push through all resistance.

The lights are never all green.

There is always a reason to stop.

Don't.

Your actions are a prayer.

You are what you do.

So act like the best version of you.

This is the true power of faking it until you make it.

Of embodying your true calling.

Of greatness.

This change will take time.

There is a lag between actions and reward.

There is a lag between action and reward.

And when it does come,

It won't be announced with fanfare.

Growth will be incremental.

Small gains.

Tiny improvements.

Minute advancements.

This is as it should be.

So act.

So act.

Act as a prayer to the gods of functionality.

And have faith.

Faith in the process.

Faith in the future.

Faith in yourself.

And remember.

You are what you do.

You are what you do.