“WHEW! I got all that work done, but I didn’t miss what you said at the end of our last session,” my client came back for an unexpected session.
“I know you said that drafting the greatest plan in the world with remarkable strategies…without massive, immediate action was nothing more than a waste of time! That has haunted me. So here I am again,” my client proclaimed!
Because she had been through my program before, I didn’t expect that to haunt her, or for her to come back at this point. But I admired her tenacity about having an extraordinary year!
She is exactly right! And it’s the place where so many people go wrong.
If I gave you a check for $10,000, and you placed it on a shelf (on top of the plan you just drafted) … and never took the action to deposit it … it would be a worthless piece of paper.
An insight without acting on it is just a thought that passed!
A realization about your future without action is a future drifting!
(A note from my AA recovery friend… “Like we always say in working the program, awareness without action? Is simply bulls**t!)
An inspirational thought in church is just another thought lost in thousands of others if it is left alone.
Great plans are certainly better than drifting. But if you do what most people do after great workshops…you lay it on the shelf, content that you’ve done a great job of drafting a great year…you will be disappointed.
I have a newsflash for you…what you drafted will not jump off the shelf and into your head like visions of sugarplum dancing around in there inspiring you to action.
As a matter fact, it will lay on the shelf, while you drift away…
But not on my watch! We simply will not let that happen.
MASSIVE IMMEDIATE ACTION is the one thing that separates those who see results from those who wish for results? (And then complain they it didn’t work for them!)
I went through the three things with my client that actually turn on the magic of massive immediate action! And I’d like to share them with you too!
Let’s shake this into action!
1. Proclamation.
Last week, we looked at setting your reticular activating system in your brain (your RAS) to searching for things that would help you become who you wanted to be in each of the seven core areas of your life.
In case you missed it, here is a link to that blog: https://bit.ly/PurposefullyDrafting. Also, within that blog is a link for the worksheet.
In the worksheet, we looked at what we believed to be true about who we were in each of those seven core areas.
Unless they were already empowering, we took what we had learned from the worksheet, and made empowering statements for each of those seven core areas.
Now let’s do something with all seven of those statements.
Let’s take them and turn them into some faith statements.
Not:
- I wish I were.
- I hope I can be.
- Or maybe I could…
But instead, “I am …” statements.
My client looked at me with just a bit of confusion, “I get what you’re saying, but one of my statements would be dishonest.”
Although I was certain I knew what she was speaking of I asked.
“Can you give me an example?”
“Well, one of my RAS setters is about my finances. I set it at: ‘I can become rich again’. But if I turned it into an ‘I am rich’ statement … well, that’s not true.”
“Ahhh,” I responded! “That’s when we become creative and turn it toward our actions, rather than our current state of being. How would it feel if you said:
‘I am finding the courage and tenacity to do whatever it takes to be debt-free and rich?’
She loved it.
Then, because I had shared my proclamation with her, she added a piece of mine: “My debt is a small amount for a God who has Wagyu beef cows being raised on a 1000 hills!”
Get playful with it. Make it fun. My client even made her rhyme, and she put music to it. She played her guitar and sang it for me. Powerful!
(A note…Annually I present the same challenges for the new year. Why? Because everyone has an equal, 100% chance of changing their life. We can either create rock and build. Or grab the remote, make pleasure our motivator, and keep the pity-party well medicated while life remains a sand pile. More wisdom from my AA friend… “You don’t have a life because you’ve chosen not to live life, on life’s terms. Which is what every egomaniac with an insecurity complex would decide to do…trust me I know…that’s why I medicated with booze. Didn’t have to face it then…but that’s NOT living…it’s dying. One ‘poor me’ at a time.”)
In your proclamation, have at least a sentence about each of your seven core areas in it.
Because it will become a crucial part of step two below.
Put yours together. Have fun with it. Make it inspiring!
PROCLAIM IT!
2. Alignment.
“If you wake up loving life, it will love you back.”
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale
Research has shown us that there is a period of approximately 20 minutes as we are falling asleep, and 20 minutes when we first wake up that our brains (our head) and our heart are totally aligned.
In those moments, creative ideas will flow naturally.
Wisdom will flow.
Calming emotion such as peace will flow.
Love will flow.
Contentment will flow.
However, we control the power to stop or promote that flow.
Let’s look first at how we stop it…
- Slamming around on the nightstand to stop the annoying alarm.
- Turning on the news.
- Picking up our phones to check social media.
- Anything that interrupts the natural flow.
“Oh my gosh! You must have spy cameras in my house. I actually demand that Siri turn off my alarm! And I jump up and head straight to the coffee pot. All while thinking of the thousands of things I need to do for the day,” My client spewed with a tone of disgust!
I had to laugh.
“So, I guess I just shut that whole good flow stuff down?” she half asked.
“It sure sounds like it,” I said and then went on.
“But you can turn that around by convincing yourself to smile, even though there’s no one to see it. By quietly turning off your alarm, doing a nice little stretch, and paying attention to those wonderful moments” I shared.
“Wow! I wonder if that’s what wrecks my days,” she asked curiously?
“Could very well be! Those are supposed to be serene and sacred moments for all of us,” I explained.
What about you? What could you do to turn those moments to magic?
I continued.
“And that same thing occurs as we wind down for the evening. Those 20 minutes when our brains and our hearts are in alignment, and the flow of nurturing thoughts, nurturing hormones, and quietness are occurring.”
My client muttered, “So I guess you’re saying that falling asleep to ‘Murder She Wrote’ is probably not the best thing to do?”
I laughed again as I said… “Not if you want the beautiful things that come from those moments. “
Ideally, it’s in those 20 minutes that we would do well to read our proclamation aloud. Particularly in the morning. But the evening would be great too.
If we get up peacefully or just sit up to reach for our proclamation and read it aloud, it goes very deep within our hearts, and within our brains. It sets our RAS to meet our desires of what we want to see occur in our lives. And speaking it out with faith builds our belief in ourselves.
Having a morning routine, and an evening routine that captures the magic of those moments is a massive immediate action that will bring incredible results.
What about you? How can you enjoy those moments?
What can you place into your mind and heart when they are perfectly aligned?
Harness those moments of peaceful and powerful purpose.
Make your proclamation a priority during those 20 minutes. I also make that the time I recite my power word. (Here is the link for that is you missed it: https://drneecie.com/2023/11/27/4822/).
Then some people add prayer, meditation, or inspirational reading. But whatever your routine is, capture the magic of those moments.
3. Gratitude.
“I should’ve known that gratitude would be on the list because everything you do includes gratitude,” My client commented.
“I’m glad you’ve noticed because gratitude is critically important to our lives,” I replied and continued.
“You see, other than those 20 minutes in the morning, and 20 minutes in the evening, when our heart and brain are programmed to come into perfect alignment…the only other way to get there is with gratitude. And it’s impossible to be grateful and negative at the same time,” I shared.
Research has indicated that only 3 minutes of gratitude creates that same sensation of alignment of our minds and our hearts. There’s not a medication that will do it. There’s not an activity that will do it.
Practicing gratitude will do it.
“Gratitude is the ability to experience life as a gift. It liberates us from the prison of self-preoccupation.” — John Ortberg
Anytime you need the flow of good hormones, the feel-good hormones, anytime you need wisdom, anytime you need that sense of wholeness and hope…3 minutes of gratitude produces just that.
“Every time I hear you say that I do it. But it just doesn’t seem to last long enough,” My client said with a soft moan!
“I hear that often… And my response is a little bit funny, but also true…”
“Even if it only lasts for 10 minutes, you know how to create it again…so why don’t we all just practice LIVING in gratitude?”
It’s not like we must grab a shovel and dig a ditch to make it happen. All we must do is take a deep breath, close our eyes (if we’re not driving) and focus in on things we have to be a grateful for.
“But I live in the ‘real world’…not a ‘woo, woo world.’ It’s fast paced, and it requires intense focus.”
With a chuckle, I responded, “I understand. I learned long ago that nobody objects when you need a restroom break. So, when the environment is intense, and things are in a flurry…I’ve learned to take a short restroom break. Because I will not live without gratitude! And if the restroom is the only place, I can get it…here I go!”
What about you? Are you willing to live in gratitude?
It’s a massive immediate action that will take the strategies and plans you carefully drafted and take them to a whole new level where the sky is not even the beginning of the limit!
***
Getting ourselves to take action isn’t always easy. But it IS the difference maker!
Tony Robbins says:
“Often, we allow ourselves to become caught in a mental trap of seeing enormously successful people and assuming they are where they are because they possess some special gift. When we get a closer look, we see there is no secret you don’t already have access to. In truth, the greatest gift that extraordinarily successful people have over the average person is their ability to get themselves to take action.”
You can do this! You can take the action.
Take a long serious look around at all the inaction you’ve sown. What did it get you? Yet another hall pass, to the same pity party? Now ask yourself this question, “If you could get 2023 back to walk through again, would your actions be the same?”
(A note from my AA friend… “Rigorous honesty, is seeing what everyone else who loves you, already knows is true about you. Then accepting that as the truth of who you’ve been and who you’ve become, then allowing this truth, to become the surrender that can change your life.”)
All it requires after you’ve drafted your plan is:
- A proclamation
- Harnessing those 20 minutes every morning
- Harnessing those 20 minutes every evening
- Practicing gratitude
This is a certain path to fulfillment. The kind of fulfillment that Martin Luther King, Jr speaks of:
“Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”
That’s the kind of fulfillment I wish and pray for you this year!
As we move towards that life (and don’t ask me how) that life moves towards us!
