Turn Things Around by Taking Action
By Susan Knight | The smallest action has the power to set things in motion beyond anything you could have foreseen or imagined, while opening the door for some good luck to come your way
Written by Susan Knight | Seeking Veritas Columnist | Sankarsingh-Gonsalves Productions | From the book Living Well: Self-Discovery, Connection and Growth by Susan Knight – reproduced with permission.
We've all gone through periods when we felt tired, stuck, or unmotivated. Your energy is down, and getting through each day is a challenge. Pushing yourself to take action during these times can be difficult. Yet taking action is precisely what's needed during these times to start turning things around.
In her book I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was, the late Barbara Sher emphasized the importance of taking action when you feel stuck. She also made the connection between action and luck. In short, your willingness to take some type of action is the catalyst that pushes you out of that rut where your energy is down and you feel unmotivated. Action of any kind also has a way of opening the door for some good luck to come your way.
Sher provides four good reasons for taking action, even when you're unclear about what you want or you feel unmotivated.
1. Action will help you think.
Reflection, introspection, and contemplation are all valuable, and they have their place in our lives. But these endeavours aren’t a substitute for getting up, getting out, and actually doing something in a practical way.
Engaging in real life experience through action brings an additional element into the mix. Actively engaging with the world around you always leads to feedback of some sort. Even when this feedback appears less than positive, it's still useful. It's information you can use to help you clarify your thinking beyond what contemplation and weighing theoretical factors can provide.
2. Action raises your self-esteem.
Lack of action leads to a drop in self-esteem and morale. As you retreat inwards and spend time getting lost in your own head, overthinking can set it. Self-criticism can set in. Doubts can set in. You reach a point where all that reflection and contemplation starts to zap your energy without moving you ahead. You find yourself getting stuck as you wait for confidence and perfect conditions, when neither of those things is likely to spontaneously show up. Obviously, you don’t want to be reckless or venture out when you’re clearly unprepared. But confidence and perfect conditions aren’t prerequisites for taking action.
When you take action and do something, you don’t just feel energized; you feel proud of yourself. That healthy feeling of pride in yourself and the confidence that goes with it is a game-changer. Not only does it start things moving in a positive direction, it also changes your mood, your outlook, your state of mind, and your perspective. Even if things don't go perfectly or turn out exactly as expected, the process of taking action is strengthening and transformative in and of itself.
Remember: high self-esteem comes after action, not before.
3. Good luck happens when you're in action.
Planning is important, but it's only a starting place. The real benefits start to pour in when acting on your plan gets you out in the world, where you start doing something new and meeting new people. In the most basic way, this is how you create space for things to happen in your life through new information, new connections, new insights, and new opportunities. You gain exposure and wind up exploring new avenues you never would have thought about or considered before. Suddenly the pieces start coming together — and the missing pieces start materializing — to enable you to take steps you couldn’t have or wouldn’t have taken before.
4. Action prepares you and positions you for what lies ahead.
Sometimes, even though you don't realize it at the time, you need an intermediate step to prepare you for something else that lies ahead. Even if an action seems small or completely unrelated to your larger goals, it might be vital in preparing and positioning you for something you'll encounter later on down the road. Consider how many times in your life you’ve looked back in hindsight and been able to clearly see how the pieces fit together, in a way you never would have been able to detect ahead of time.
Where to start? Don't be afraid to start small; every journey starts with a single step. There’s no need to overwhelm yourself, nor do you need to compare yourself to anyone else. Select something realistic you can do, something you genuinely feel capable of and at peace with. It might feel a little bit uncomfortable or challenging, especially if it's something unfamiliar and you need to stretch yourself a bit; but you want to select something within your reach. The smallest of actions has the potential to set things in motion in a way you never could have foreseen or even imagined. And it just might serve as the catalyst to start bringing some good luck your way!
About the author: Susan is a writer, certified health and wellness coach, and author of Living Well: Self-Discovery, Connection and Growth
Susan Knight | SGP Featured Writer | Contact the author: @ http://skfreelance.com
This was a thought-provoking piece. The younger me was often paralyzed with inaction. It was usually born from fear or uncertainty. When faced with a challenge or opportunity, many times I would choose to do nothing but this would set in motion a chain of events that ultimately validated my initial apprehension. The problem was that by not taking action, I missed crucial opportunities to learn, adapt, or influence outcomes in my favour. This would then lead to stagnation that to my brain, confirmed the original fear of failure. This reinforced the belief that any action was futile which in turn further entrenched the reasoning that any action was useless. This became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I broke out of it when I immigrated from Trinidad to Canada. That move became the catalyst for a series of actions, that eventually brought me to this place in my life. In moving here, I was forced to take an action and benefit from its consequence. It was like re-wiring my brain.