Act now.
This principle,
This saying,
I act now,
Has been one of the best mental reframes,
The best ideas,
The single most effective way that I've learnt to get stuff done.
Act now.
If something comes up that you can address in under 5 minutes,
Rather than writing it down on a to-do list that is ever-growing,
Just do it in that moment.
If it's a small decision,
Rather than thinking about it and debating it and contemplating it and discussing it,
Just have a philosophy with yourself and if it applies with your partner,
Where you just decide.
There's a certain type of person,
And I consider myself as one of these people,
Well I used to be,
That gets stuck on anxious neurotic rumination.
We get stuck on the small things,
All the small decisions feel as big as the big decisions,
And then we become overwhelmed and don't make any choices,
And then we wake up and find that we're barely surviving,
And we're looking at our lives and go,
Far out,
I wish I could be thriving right now.
You get to thrive when you get good at making quick decisions,
When you get good at acting now.
If something can be done,
Small things,
Do them.
And for the bigger things,
Rather than procrastinating and waiting,
Start moving towards it now.
This is an aspect of assertiveness,
Or potentially even aggression.
Now aggression is a,
Ooh it's an interesting word,
It's got a bit of a sting to it,
We don't want to be known as being aggressive,
But aggression is a tool,
It's a defense mechanism,
It's something that keeps us safe,
And it's something that can help us get what we want,
And what we need.
Aggression can be harnessed and used.
Early humans had to be aggressive to survive,
We had to fight for our survival,
To get the food we needed to survive,
And the shelter,
And the safety.
And it's the same for us now,
Those drives are inside us,
And they can be used.
Now in the session where we talked about living honestly,
We established a moral guidance and moral rules to make sure that we are acting in the world in a way that is appropriate.
So I'm in no way saying to take from others,
I'm in no way saying to aggressively harm others,
But I am saying to act now,
To step forward,
To do,
To be assertive.
Because the truth is,
Is that it is never the right time.
The lights are never always green,
There will always be a reason to not do something.
One of the things that I've realized is,
You look at any successful person,
You look at their story,
And you realize that they had barriers that they had to overcome,
They could have stopped at.
Yes,
They might have had advantages over you,
But they also had disadvantages.
Just look into their stories,
Because it's very easy to look at their stories and go,
Oh yeah,
Well they are where they are now,
And it's inevitable.
But that wasn't true when they were growing through it,
When they were living it.
There are countless people who let those very same barriers stop them.
There are countless people who didn't act.
There are countless people who saw some red lights,
Saw some barriers,
And stopped and never got back on and started.
There will be barriers in the path.
One of the ways that you can learn to act now,
Is to know where you are going.
What is your highest value?
What are your highest truths?
What is your distant mountain?
And if you don't know what your distant mountain is,
That's your goal to discover that.
What do you value in this life?
Because that can point you in the right direction.
If you are not sure on which way to go,
If you can't act now because you are suffering from a lack of decision,
But you know those highest values,
You can choose which one will get you close to those values.
Do you value prestige?
Do you value family?
Do you value comfort?
Do you value charity?
There's no right answer here.
The right answer is what is your highest value?
Well,
If you face a decision,
You take action towards that path.
You are not sure,
You head towards your highest value.
You head towards the distant mountain top.
You head towards the thing that gives you,
You know,
That wakes you up,
That gives you that inner feeling of like,
Yes,
This is it for me.
This is what I want to be doing with my life.
This brings me joy.
Head towards that.
And you may not be heading in the exact right direction,
But you want to be heading towards that mountain.
If that mountain is north,
And you find yourself on a path northwest,
That's fine,
Because you're still getting closer.
You get a little bit closer,
You see it in the distance,
And you correct course.
But what we're doing is we're acting,
We're taking steps,
We're moving.
Because the moment you start moving,
You'll get your bearings,
You'll go,
Oh,
This isn't for me.
I don't like this.
And you can stop walking in that direction and change paths.
But if you stay still,
Do nothing,
Sit there and wait,
You will always be stuck in sitting there and waiting and that distant mountain top will be forever unclimbed,
And that path will be forever not treaded.
There are always reasons not to.
There are always decisions and tangents and caveats and things that you might get wrong.
But if you act,
And you have an idea of acting now,
Then when you face those barriers and those blocks and those issues and those things arising,
You can act about them and fix them even quicker.
Because you act now,
You take a step,
Something goes wrong,
Course correct straight away.
I'm wondering,
Is there something you can do right now,
You can act now upon,
That will take you closer to thriving?
What can you do?
Can you do it?
And if you don't know,
Sit and think about your highest values.
What do you value in life?
Work that out,
And then take a step,
Then move,
Then act.
Whenever any decision arises,
Do your best to act upon it as quickly as possible.
Indecision will stop you,
Indecision will restrict you,
Indecision will bind you,
Like quicksand.
And you'll find yourself with countless little decisions,
And that itself will become an overwhelming task that you can't push through.
Break the knot,
Step forward,
And deploy some assertiveness or some aggression in a healthy approach.
Do it now.
This track is taken from my course,
From Surviving to Thriving.
10 Principles to Turn Your Life Around.
It's out now and available on my InsightTimer profile.
I invite you to check it out.
