Inspired Action
With the New Year, everyone sets goals and then they try to achieve those goals. Goals are "what" you want to achieve; actions are "how" you get there. Traditional time management says: 1) make a list of action items, 2) prioritize the list, and 3) work on the top priority items.
This year, I'd like you to consider a different approach: inspired action. Rather than try to figure out the action steps--the "how," let the action steps reveal themselves.
What's "inspired action?" Inspired action comes from having a goal and then acting on any hunch, insight or intuitive nudge about what to do next. If you wake up in the morning full of passion and enthusiasm to do something that seems oddly unrelated to your goals, do it anyway. If your left-brain says you should do XYZ to achieve your goals and your right-brain says to playfully do ABC, then do ABC.
Why follow your passion and intuition? Because it's easier to develop momentum doing something you're excited about rather than something you dread or have no enthusiasm for doing. Then, you can leverage the momentum into something else on your "to do" list.
People often wonder how I've written so many books, run a business, developed the QI Macros and so on. They wonder why I'm so productive. Inspired action is the answer:
- I make a list of things I want to do, create or achieve (e.g., write an article, an ezine, a book, or whatever). I write these on a 3x3 Post-It.
- I wake up in the morning and tell myself: "I have some way cool things to do today."
- I have a cup of coffee and see what rises to the surface as my first action item. Then I do it.
- When I don't know what to do next, I rewrite my 3x3 list, eliminating completed items and adding new ones. By the time I'm done, I usually know what to do next. If not, I ask myself: "What would be the most fun to work on today?"
It's that simple. Even this ezine was created with inspired action. I was reading one of Jack Canfield's books and immediately recognized the phrase "inspired action" as how I run my life.
Like most folks, one of my goals is around weight: "I am energetically alive at 185." Now, most folks think they have to join a gym or diet or whatever, but I just set the goal. Then I spontaneously found myself adding wind sprints to my morning walk with the dog (exercise that fits me). I also found myself eating half of my restaurant meals and taking the other half home for later (portion control). I'm not at my goal yet, but I can tell that I'm making intuitive changes to achieve it. Get the idea?
So, if you're going to set goals for the New Year, why not have fun doing them? Let the right inspired actions come to you. Let passion pull you into action and use that momentum to carry you into the next thing and then the next. It's a lot more fun way to live.