Take action steps now – the key to
accomplishing your dreams
Podcast Transcript:
This episode shares the ninth of my 10 methods to manage time effectively.
Take action steps now – the key to accomplishing your dreams
This episode is about learning to take action steps as part of the mini-series full of tips to manage your time better to fulfill your life purpose. In the transcription of this podcast, you’ll see the link to my website where you can see more resources.
Take massive action
I’ve heard one of my business mentors, McKay Christensen tell this story many times.
Ronnie was at a birthday party for the adult daughter of a very wealthy man.
The highlight of the party was to be his big speech. He gathered everyone around the pool for his big announcement.
“Thank you all for coming to my daughter’s big birthday party. I’ve decided to make things interesting for the many young men who are here because honestly, they would like to marry my daughter and would also like a part of my fortune.”, he began.“I’ve filled the pool in front of us with flesh-eating piranha fish. Whoever can swim from one end of the pool to the other and back and survive can have their choice of either my daughter’s hand in marriage or a part of my fortune”/
The next moment there was a big splash, and a young man swam furiously through the pool as the piranhas ate away at him. He survived and the impressed father asked him would he rather marry his daughter or receive a portion of his immense wealth.
The young man replied, “Neither. I just want to get my hands on the person who pushed me into that pool!”.
We’ve been talking about how to identify what to do, but now I want you to dive in and do it. In this episode, I’m going to try to push you into the pool!
Take action today
Last week, we discussed focusing on the important and not urgent in Quadrant 2.
By planning ahead, you can spend your time where you will be most productive and achieve your dreams while still having control, balance, and vision in your life.
I challenged you to ask yourself – How can I spend more time in Quadrant 2?
When it is time to stop pondering and time to start acting!
During the past several weeks we have learned what our top priorities are (our BHAGS) and broken them down into the action steps it will take to accomplish them.
You may have felt pretty accomplished having done that.
But if you don’t trust in your plan and dive into the pool, you will fall right back into paralysis by analysis. Meaning, you will convince yourself that planning is enough when it is actually what many people call the definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
Doing safe activities which don’t really move your goals forward is not massive action.
Taking the frog that you were afraid to eat, but you know will propel you forward towards your goals as we identified previously. Doing the action steps to eat the frog right now is what you need to do to succeed.
When you take that first big scary step and succeed, it will lead to the next and the next which will create momentum and will transform you into a person who is capable of massive action.
Take one action
Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler is one of my all-time favorite authors.
One of the lessons he taught that is always with me is the value of one moment in time.
He takes the lesson from the Talmud which shares stories of people who were far from great, but one action in one moment attained them infinite reward.
There were two categories of people who earned their reward.
Those who took a heroic action that ended their life and those who took a single action that led to another and became their life mission.
Don’t let your life mission fall to the side – take action now.
In the words of Rav Noah Weinberg, “Know what you are willing to die for and live for it!”.
Take action now
You can’t wait for the right moment. That moment may never come.
You can’t wait until you feel like it. You can’t let how you feel get in your way.
You can’t wait for the perfect opportunity.
As one of my Rabbis Rabbi Yissocher Frand once shared at a celebration of learning the entire Talmud one page a day, “Why bother? Why start? Why begin? Anyone who thinks that way doesn’t understand one of the great truths of life. Perfect is the enemy of good. It is the mindset of people that think that if they can’t achieve perfection, then what’s the point. As a result, even the good is never achieved in all areas of life.”
You are meant for greatness.
Dive in the pool.
Take that first action step.
Your dreams will follow!
In the next podcast, we will learn how to Organize Your Week, so you get it all done with time to spare.
For more guidance and tips on how to live your dream life, go to my website, https://therabbiwhogotrichonsunday.com to access content-rich articles and more.
You can also access a link to that web page through the show notes, if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast platforms.
Resources
2 Responses
Your article helped me a lot, is there any more related content? Thanks!
Sure — you can look at other podcast title here:
https://therabbiwhogotrichonsunday.com/content/podcast-series/