Getting Yourself to Take Action

If you want to Achieve anything in life it cannot be done unless you take Action.

Have you ever been in a situation where you know you should do something but for some strange reason you just can’t get yourself to do it. Chances are you have. For so many of us who talk and think about the things we need to do to change things in our lives, yet we can’t seem to get ourselves to follow through, this can be a nightmare. We end up feeling frustrated, overwhelmed and angry with ourselves because we know we should take action to achieve our goal but can’t get ourselves to do it. I know what this feels like because it has happened to me many times for many years.

What causes us to behave in this manner? Well, the short version is that everything we do, we do to get away from some perceived pain or to get some perceived pleasure. Consider this situation. You know you should do something but you still don’t do it. This is because deep down you believe that taking action right now would be more painful than putting it off. I remember whenever I had to ask my parents for stuff or tell them some bad news, I would pace up and down in my room ,talking to myself to go do it but after a long time finally deciding to not do it and feeling relieved for the moment that I didn’t do it. I would end up later feeling angry with myself. For lots of us when we put something off for so long we end up reaching that point where suddenly we have to do it now, we have to get it done..Now! It is at that point that you have changed what you linked pain and pleasure to and now not taking action is more painful to you than putting it off.

The reason I do not drink beyond one glass of any alcoholic beverage is the pain I associate with being drunk and losing control of my faculties, things like vomiting, inability to stand or walk, loss of memory, etc., I’ve been drunk in the distant past and woke up the next morning not remembering what happened the night before and that scared me. My pleasure comes from being in control of me, my body and mind. It is terrifying to go through the things I see people who get drunk go through,..Hell No!!

So what happens to those people who can experience great pain but fail to take action to change things, I hear you say? Simple, they just haven’t experienced enough pain yet, they haven’t reached that level of pain to cause them to say “No More, Enough, This must Change Now!!!”, then and only then will they take action. You see some people wait until things get so bad that we have no other option but to take action immediately.

To get ourselves to take action we must associate severe pain to not taking action and extreme pleasure to taking action now.

How to Get Ourselves to Take Action:
• Write down an action that you need to take that you have been putting off- e.g. writing that novel that’s inside you.
• Then ask yourself the following questions and answer them in detail and honestly.
a) Why haven’t I taken action?
b) I the past what pain have I associated to taking this action?
These questions will assist you in understanding that you have associated
greater pain to taking the action than to not taking it.

• Write down all the pleasure you’ve gained in the past by engaging in this negative state. You wanna lose weight then why are you continuing to eat those Brownies. Why, because it gives you instant pleasure and makes you fell good right now.

• Write down what it will cost you if you don’t take action right now. Answer these questions:
a) What will happen if you don’t take action now? So what will happen if you don’t stop eating Brownies, or begin writing that novel, or study for that test? Be honest.
b) What is it going to cost you in the long run? i.e. over the next year and beyond.
c) What will it cost you on an emotional level.
d) How does that make you feel? When answering this question please put some feelings into it.
• Write down all the pleasure you will get by taking action right now. Put together a large list that will irk you on a deeply emotional level.

I know we all won’t always have time to do all of this in certain situation. But the principle remains the same we must associate severe pain to not taking action and extreme pleasure to taking action now.