Daily action towards a goal is the fastest way to achieve your goal. As you take daily action you see the results of that action fairly quickly if not immediately. Visible results which are clear and undeniable are huge motivators. If you stick to a diet plan every day, you will soon see and feel the results. You will be able to put your socks on more easily. You will be able to get out of that chair quickly without flailing about in the air to create extra lift off! This will encourage you to continue the diet plan. But if you take a day off every now and again, results will arrive much more slowly and even not at all and you may start thinking that the diet is not working and you may give up altogether. However, taking daily action is still not that easy. How can we make it easier? That is what this article is about. Jim Rohn argues that success is just a few easy disciplines practised daily. However if those disciplines were that easy why don't more people practise them? Let's make them even easier. We will then need only a small amount of motivation to take daily action towards our goals If one of your goals is to lose weight, avoid temptation. Don't have any biscuits or junk food in the house or, failing that, have only a few of each. If some forbidden food or drink is easily accessible, it will draw you irresistibly towards it or it will exhaust your nervous energy as you struggle to resist its attraction. Again this is easier said than done. Go a step further and don't make such frequent visits to the supermarket or shopping centre or shop which is full of tempting products. If necessary order the essentials from your milk man and just visit one or two shops that are not full of other tempting offers. Or order everything you need on the internet from those local shops that have a website you can order from. There may be a delivery charge but your overall order should cost less since you will not have bought the forbidden items. Have the necessary tools readily available to achieve your goals. If one of your goals is to walk more often, have your walking shoes at the door ready to go. If you have difficulty bending over, you may need a long shoe horn to help you get the shoes on. Have it available near the shoes! Make going for a walk as easy as possible. If you plan to stretch, have a stretching machine on your bedroom floor and sit in it every day. You may still not use it but at least it will be available. If you want to do push ups make sure you have enough clear space in your bedroom so that you can perform them as soon as you get up in the morning. Make sure the carpet is clean enough to lie down on! Make sure you lie down on the floor every morning. You may still not do that push up but you will have made doing a push up as easy as possible! If necessary, do just one push up. The number will soon rise if you keep up the daily effort. Space is a key factor in making daily action easier. When I was practising nunchaku regularly, I had the fluorescent lighting in my house placed at the front of the ceilings in at least two rooms so that I could practise inside without hitting the lights. I had a gym built near my house. I made sure that an iron bar was put in near the ceiling of the gym so that I could hang from it like a gorilla and attempt chin ups without having to find a suitable tree branch! Make full use of the washroom or lavatory or toilet or whatever you prefer to call it. While you are sitting there waiting for nature to take its course read part of a book or those notes you wanted to memorise. Clear your house of clutter so that you have room to practise your dancing or kicking or yoga or walking meditation. A cluttered house does not lend itself to daily disciplines and actions. Clutter in the house also means clutter in the mind. It also means accidents. I have just tripped over some steps in my bedroom which is far too cluttered. Fortunately I landed on the bed! Have fewer choices available. If you plan to read 20 books, make sure you keep only the first two or three in your study. This will help you to focus on and finish them and then 'archive' them into another room. If you don't do this kind of limitation of your choices you will be like the fox that told the cat that it had a hundred ways of escaping the hounds. When the dogs suddenly appeared, the fox stood paralysed wondering which of the hundred ways was most suitable. The cat had only one choice. It immediately climbed the nearest tree and escaped the terrible fate of the fox! Make a list of the daily actions you wish to take the night before you need to take them. Visualize yourself performing those actions successfully and celebrate in advance the achievement of your goals. Go to sleep and let your subconscious mind do its work of moving you towards your goals and dreams. Even if you repeat the same daily actions, the above listing exercise is worth doing. Try it regularly and see if it still makes a difference. High flyers will need none of the above. They are already flying high but those of us who are not yet flying high need all the help we can get. You have to walk before you run and you have to run before you take off and fly. I hope this article will have made your runway a little smoother! |
