You're the Director in This Movie Called Life
TakeAction_Web
It's Time to Take Action
You are the creative force behind your life. It all starts and ends with you!
In order to experience the life you desire, you need to gather up the courage and take action.
Every time I think of the phrase “Take Action” I think of a film director using a clacker to signal when to record a scene. He’s cuing the actors in the film to take action and to play out their roles. They are simple words which can lead to block buster results.
If you think about it, your life is like a movie. You are the director and have authority over things you can control in your script. Your life can be a hit or it can be mediocre because it was poorly managed.
You determine your course of action and are able to think yourself into existence.
Once you begin to take action and see results, you start to think differently. Your actions will drive your thoughts and your thoughts will eventually drive your actions.
Last week we focused on the reasons why you are afraid to get started. I hope you did your homework when I asked you to pin point the source of your fears so we can face them with a call to action.
This weeks post will discuss 5 steps towards putting your life in motion:
Finding Your Why
Knowing What You Want
Taking Small Steps
Taking Risks
Be Proactive
Find Your Why
Hopefully you understand your fears of starting because it’s time to go the next step and find your why. I’ll be completely honest, if you don’t know your why, then you should probably hold off from starting as you’re setting yourself up for hardships.
If you start without understanding why you’re even doing it in the first place, you will inevitably quit.
Think of finding your why is like peeling layers of an onion to get to the core. As you formulate a reason for why you are doing this, challenge yourself to keep peeling back the layers. You have to keep asking why in order to find the root of your why.
It should strike a nerve deep within you. It’s more than “I want to be famous and rich.” That kind of motive will not get you anywhere.
Your why is built on your core values and principles. It’s the foundation of why you get up every day with laser focus towards a certain goal. If you’re struggling with these internal questions, I want you to ask yourself:
Who are you?
What are your values?
What drives you?
Take your time to actually write these out. Put some thought into answering these as you start to peel back the layers of who you are as a person. You will begin to think differently and your why will start to become apparent.
My why started off that I feel the need to change lives with my art………but why? I needed to define my purpose and determine how I can provide the most value to my audience.
I dug deep enough and realized that my purpose on this earth is simply to serve and connect with people like you and to contribute something of value to the world. I feel it is my human duty directed from God and I can’t seem to peel any more layers back from that. That’s who I am at my core and that’s at the center of everything I produce.
Once you have your why and understand why you do what you do, you have to know what you want and how to attain it.
2. Know What You Want
Maybe you’re finally understanding your why and you’re ready for the next step which is figuring out what you want in life so you can plan your attack.
In order to figure out what you want in life, you need to identify a goal. The goal is the driving force behind your action. When you align your why with what you want to do, you’ll begin to wake up each day with a focused mindset and have the ambition to keep working towards the desired result.
You can have multiple goals; short term and long term, but there should be an overall vision that embodies all of them.
When you setup these goals, you should define them with the S.M.A.R.T. technique. A S.M.A.R.T. goal is defined as one that is specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time-bound.
S = Specific(concise and to the point)
M = Measurable(capable of being measured and trackable)
A = Attainable(something realistic yet challenging)
R = Relevant(something that aligns to your why)
T = Time-Bound(use time frames to create urgency)
I recommend keeping the specifics of your goals to yourself. Write them down where you see them everyday to keep yourself accountable. These goals can be flexible and change over time as you evolve as an individual and grow as an artist.
After I discovered my why, it was easier for me to figure out what I wanted.
I want to establish relationships and help other like minded, creative entrepreneurs get to where they want to be in life because I know that’s the only way I can get to where I want to be. I want to leave behind a legacy; something of value that will endure the times and serve people well into the future.
This is the gist of my overall goal at the moment and I have many goals under this umbrella that will help me stay focused and make trackable progress along the way.
This has been a steady evolution over time with plenty of failure but as long as I keep failing forward, I’m still in the game because I’ve been taking small steps of action and analyzing what is and isn’t working.
These small steps have been making a huge impact in my life.
3. Small Steps Yield Big Results
Last week I discussed the fear of needing to be perfect right out of the gate. You need to realize all the experts started off by taking small steps which led them to success.
Your biggest role models and heroes harnessed the power of small incremental change over time. When people tell them that they make whatever they do looks so easy, we don’t think about all the hours and time they’ve invested to accomplish that feat. They are experts because they put in the time to accomplish their stature.
Picture the grand canyon, obviously it wasn’t created over night. It’s been a tedious process of small, incremental change over time. It’s the result of water flowing through, freezing, breaking and slowly enlarging the crater along with other elemental changes. Throughout the test of time, it continued to grow and what we have today is one of the most prolific and beautiful places on the earth.
Small incremental change over time carved out a masterpiece. The same goes toward your life and goals. Small, daily investments lead to big results.
Showing up every day establishes commitment and tenacity. You begin to develop that hustle muscle and you will slowly but surely see results. The questions you once had begin to answer themselves and the next step becomes more clear. You gain more clarity on your vision and momentum continues to build.
These small steps over time instill confidence in you compared to someone who feels the need to bite off more than they can chew.
Don’t give into the trap of feeling like you need to start with massive action and taking bigger steps than you’re capable of. Good things take time and it’s easy to get discouraged.
We live in a society that expects immediate results and instant gratification. That’s a lot of pressure on you which will lead to getting discouraged and result in having to give up and start over.
Take things slow yet be aggressive and hungry. No one can make you want it, you have to be internally driven. You will eventually come to a fork in the road where you’ll have to take a leap of faith.
4. Taking Risks
“If you are unwilling to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” - Jim Rohn
It’s cliche but everything in life worth having requires risk. Getting started in the first place requires you facing your fears and taking a risk.
When I say take a risk, I mean take a calculated and reasonable approach. You may have to go with your gut but you need to be prepared. By failing to be prepared, you are preparing to fail and I feel this is crucial when taking a risk.
This risk must align with your why and what you are wanting to accomplish.
I don’t condone quitting your job spontaneously and starting off full-time freelance when you have a family, no clientele and no savings to fall back on while you establish yourself. That is not a calculated risk.
However, having a savings, some established clients plus a strategic game plan of action is a great spring board towards taking the leap to full time freelance. It’s a high risk situation that can yield high rewards and still align with your mission.
Many people hold themselves back from taking a risk and feel they need to play life safe and do everything by the rules. They protect themselves from disappointment, discouragement and failure.
Some rules are meant to be broken and by trying to protect yourself from failing, you inevitably become a failure by default.
Stop holding yourself back and go for it.
When you are prepared and take a risk, it will seem luck is always on your side. It will feel you are at the right place at the right time. When in reality, it’s the combination of hard work, risk and preparation. You essentially are creating your own luck.
This doesn’t happen when you sit on your ass and play it safe. You’ll be the person who plays the blame game and convinces yourself that it’s everyone else’s fault for your problems.
A great example of a highly calculated risk is by the renowned Bill Gates. Bill dropped out of Harvard so he could focus on writing computer code day in and day out for the BASIC programming language of Altair, which was one of the first personal computers.
Many thought he was crazy for leaving such a prestigious school and chasing a dream.
Sometimes you need to take a risk for a dream that only you can see.
We all know how this eventually turned out for him. High risk = High rewards.
When you calculate a risk, you have to be proactive about your plan of action.
5. Be Proactive
Many people called Bill Gates lucky and that he was in the right place at the right time. While some of this may be true, there were plenty of others prestigious programmers at that time reigning from some of the highest institutions in the nation. What set him apart from them was not luck, it was his ambition and proactive response to taking action.
He dropped out and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico to write code. The majority of people would say it wasn't a safe move at the time, but he believed in something. He believed in himself and his abilities to create something much more than himself that could help people and improve their lives.
Once you know your why and have identified your goals, you need to be proactive and take the risk. The coined phrase “Good things come to those who wait” I personally feel is a bunch of BS.
You can’t wait for success to come to you, it doesn’t work that way. I can’t think of one person who sat there waiting for something good to happen in their lives because they just really wanted it yet took no initiative.
Most of us are in a reactive mindset. We sit still, going through the motions and only move when we have to react to something.
For example, you’re at work and do just enough to get by while you’re trying to look busy. You never take that extra step and only respond once you’re told to do something. You never look ahead, taking initiative to become something more. You don’t look for ways to provide more value to your clients, your team or your company.
When you stay in a reactive state of mind, you’re being a disservice to those around you and to yourself. You enable yourself to become stagnant instead of finding a way to being more productive and contributing something of value.
Taking action expresses your priorities, and you should always be proactive with whatever is most important to you reaching your goals.
You Control Your Life
Facings your fears and taking action are the catalysts for achieving the life experience you desire. However, you need discipline to stay on track when it’s easy to get distracted and go a different direction. I’ll be discussing discipline in detail next week.
Key Takeaways:
You determine your course of action and are able to think yourself into existence
Know your why before you start
Know what you want
Set S.M.A.R.T. goals
Small, incremental change yields big results
Take a calculated risk
Be proactive and keep moving forward
You are the creative force behind your life. You are the director of your own movie. Take ownership over the things you can control and align your efforts to your mission.
Once you know your why and what you want, you have the power and the tools to get the results.
This week I challenge you to figure out your why and start dedicating one hour a day towards your goal. Stop making excuses and start making plays.
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