DO THIS:Take Action Now
Congratulations! You've completed the first half of your success story. You are well on your way to creating a millionaire mind, the mindset for riches. In Part One of the book we did the mental groundwork, now we start taking action. And we begin with the principle of taking action now, not later.
It's common to talk about your hopes and dreams as if they'll happen in some amorphous future. You might say things like:
Someday I'd like to . . .
Maybe at one point I can . . .
When I'm older, I will . . .
In this chapter, we move our success from some time in the future to creating our success now, day by day, action by action.
It would be great if we took action once we felt motivated to do so. But that's just not the way life works. The formula is actually the reverse. We'll feel the motivation once we take action.
Here's a simple analogy. If you only went to the gym when you felt motivated to do so, then what kind of results would you see? Probably not very dramatic results. But anyone who has committed to going to the gym consistently will tell you that there are some (many? most?) days when they didn't want to go to the gym, but once they did go to the gym, they felt so good afterward and that in turn motivated them to keep going and to go even more. The energy/feeling/motivation came after going to the gym. The energy/feeling/motivation for your success will come after you take actions toward it.
Don't believe me? Give it try.
Before you take action, everything is a theory. After you take action, you are in the process of moving toward something. There is nothing worse than unrealized potential. Wouldn't it be terrible to come to the end of your life and think, “I wish I had wasted less time procrastinating and taken more actions and chances . . .”? It doesn't have to be that way.
You've already decided to commit to your million-dollar journey, and today is the day you are going to take it from theory to process. Again, using that analogy of the gym, you can think about joining and going to a gym for weeks and months, but thinking about it won't actually change anything. Once you go, even after your first workout, your body begins changing. And after you went that first time, it was easier to go the second day, and the third. That's because you created momentum with that first action.
DO THIS:
Take Action Now
Good news, you already know which actions to take! You might be thinking: I do?! Yes, you do!
If you remember, one of the exercises in a previous chapter was to write three actions you could take immediately that would have a positive effect on your life. What I'm going to ask you to do now is to go do those three things. If you can do them at this very moment, close this book and do them. Or do them as soon as you can.
Now, go do what you can right now. Go on . . . I'll wait here for you.
Welcome back. How did it feel to take those actions?
While those three actions may or may not have had a direct connection to your goal, they do constitute actions, and taking actions changes both how you feel and your circumstances.
DO THIS: Take Three (More Actions)
Now that you took three actions, I want you to stay with that energy of action. So below, write down three more actions you can take tomorrow. Remember, these are off the top of your head; don't overthink it. Write them down now:
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2.______________________________________________
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3.______________________________________________
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If you want, you can do some of those actions today. However, I want you to get in the habit of doing today's actions today and letting tomorrow's actions happen tomorrow. Why? First, because I don't want you to become overwhelmed. It's always true that when we start something new we have a lot of energy and want to do as much as possible. But if we do more and more up front, I've noticed that people then tend to be overwhelmed very quickly, and give up on their journey. Their commitment wanes, and even stops. Second, getting in the habit of just doing today's actions today allows us to create healthy habits right from the start. It's called “balance.” The more balance you create right now, from the start, the more success you will have. Why? Because you are starting from a position of strength and wholeness, which will continue to fuel you further.
Also, get in the habit of creating actions to take and writing them down. Like everything else in this book, the simpler you make it, the better. One of my students was so excited after the first class on Prosperity Principles that on the way home he stopped at an office supply store and bought a very complicated planner—one that had many tabs, special paper that only fit that planner, an expensive leather cover, a special pen that fit in a penholder in that planner, and so on. He showed everyone at the next class this whole setup, and when I asked him how much he spent on it, he said it was well over a hundred dollars. You can already guess the end of this story. By the end of the class, he wasn't using the planner. He said it was . . . wait for it . . . too complicated. Remember KISSS? Keep it simple, super simple!
Now, if you love complicated planners, by all means use one. Go for it. Some people do love that level of structure. However, if you're one of those people who think you need to make things complicated—including your actions toward success—complicating things sabotages your success.
Whatever system you use to track actions, just do it. What do I do? There are two things that work for me. First, I carry a journal around with me all the time, and I write down things that come to mind, including actions that I need to take. Second, I use sticky notes. Everything I need to do, I write it on a sticky note. One action per note. And when I do that action, I crumple up that sticky note and throw it away. It's very satisfying to do! (By the way, you can take notes on your phone and on your computer if you don't want to use paper sticky notes).
If an action that I need to take is too big for one sticky note, I see what smaller actions I need to take first, write the sticky notes for those, and then keep doing that until the larger action is done. Remember, big how, little how? Breaking bigger actions into smaller, achievable ones supports your million-dollar journey.
I'm not telling you to do it like I do. I'm telling you how I do it to inspire you to find the way that works for you. I've used this system to write many books, do all I do for my very complicated and detail-oriented job, for my family, for everything. It works.
Do your actions each day. At night, reflect on the day and review your action items. Here are some of the questions you can ask yourself:
Checking in keeps you accountable and also keeps your goals at the forefront of your mind. Remember, what you give your attention to is what is more apt to happen.
When it comes to actions, some people are more yin and some are more yang. You might have seen a yin-yang symbol, it looks like this:
Yang, the white side of the symbol, is described as the “masculine” aspect of the yin-yang symbol. It's the more action-oriented, active, giving part of the symbol. Yin, the black side of the symbol, is described as the “feminine” aspect of the yin-yang symbol. It's the more inward, passive, nurturing part of the symbol.
Both parts together create one whole. The whole needs both parts in order to be complete. This is the symbol for our lives. We need both yin and yang aspects in our lives to be whole, to be in balance.
Some people are out of balance. Some people tend to be more yin, and some tend to be more yang. Here are qualities of both:
| YIN | YANG |
| Passive | Active |
| Feminine energy | Masculine energy |
| Inward | Outward |
| Be-er | Doer |
| Relaxed | Intense |
| Easygoing | Demanding |
| Gentle | Assertive |
| Spontaneous | Planned |
| Subtle | Direct |
| Flexible | Decisive |
| Procrastinator | Busy-Making |
Do you identify with aspects of both? Or do you identify more with one or the other. I personally tend to be more yang oriented in life. I'm a doer, a planner, more outwardly focused. I've found that I sometimes need to do less in order to be more balanced, which paradoxically allows me to do more.
On the other hand, I've seen people who are more yin oriented. They are more relaxed, subtle, and can be procrastinators. They sometimes need to do more in order to be more balanced, which allows them to experience more success.
Why is this important? Especially here, in the chapter about action?
If you are more yang, then you need to:
If you are more yin, then you need to:
Do you feel balanced? Or do you feel more of a yin? Or more of a yang? Write your answer here or in your journal:
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Here's a secret about taking action. When you approach your list of actions for the day, do the hardest one first. Do the thing that you least want to do first. Why? It's the opposite of what most people do. Most people tend to look at their action list and do the easy things first, and then by the time they do those things, they either don't have time or energy (or both) to do the bigger, harder things. If you start with the hardest thing first, you create incredible momentum for the rest of your day, and you will be likelier to get everything done. Don't believe me? Try it and see!
Some of the first books on prosperity and success mention the word “auto-suggestion” as a key to master to achieve what you want. What is auto-suggestion? Very simply put, auto-suggestion is repeating something over and over again to create a certain outcome. When you consciously feed suggestions to your subconscious mind, it gets to work on orienting your life toward what you are feeding it.
Everyone uses auto-suggestion already. One prosperity teacher explained it this way: we are what we think about all day long. If we don't learn how to train our way of thinking and our thoughts, then we tend to do what I call “faux think”—which is to just think about whatever is in front of us and not what's ahead of us or the bigger picture. Auto-suggestion is a way to influence our outcomes and actions by flooding our mind with specific thoughts.
One study I read a few years ago said that we are surrounded by seven times more negative imagery and information in the media than positive imagery and information. Seven times! If that's true, then that means that to balance out the negativity, we need to flood our mind with positivity as much as we can.
If we think negative thoughts most of the day, then we are using auto-suggestion in a negative way. That's negative auto-suggestion. The good news is that we can consciously choose what we feed our mind. We can choose to saturate our mind with positive auto-suggestion, positive self-talk. It's as simple as coming up with ways to put as many positive ideas into our mind as possible. The more positivity you put into your mind, the more positivity that comes out. That's common sense, but that doesn't mean it's easy. If it were easy to have a positive outlook, we'd all be positive all the time! And we wouldn't use negativity to create drama and attention, and then wonder why we have a negative experience.
Auto-suggestion is vitally important to your goal. You need to make sure to create self-talk that is congruent with your goal. In other words, you need think in ways that support your goal. How do you use auto-suggestion to do this? You find ways to repeat messages that reflect a positive outcome.
For example, if your goal is to make one million dollars by the end of the year, because it will allow you to be completely out of debt and make you feel prosperous, then you create a series of statements that reflect that, such as:
And so on. You can create as many of these auto-suggestions as you want. Then find as many ways as you can to feed these thoughts to your mind.
You can:
What other ways can you feed these positive thoughts into your mind? Write these ways down here (or in your journal):
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DO THIS: Write
Your Auto-Suggestions
Now that you know about auto-suggestion, it's time for you to create your own statements, to feed your mind and support your journey to success. In the space below, or in your journal, write at least five statements that support your goal.
1. ______________________________________________
2. ______________________________________________
3. ______________________________________________
4. ______________________________________________
5. ______________________________________________
And now write down three ways you can use these statements to immerse them into your subconscious mind (i.e., memorize them, write them on sticky notes, etc.)
1. ______________________________________________
2. ______________________________________________
3. ______________________________________________
You may have heard about the Law of Attraction, the Law of Karma, or the Law of Cause and Effect. These three laws of life all say the same thing. Simply put, these laws essentially teach that what you give is what you receive. If you put forth negativity, you'll receive negativity. If you put forth positivity, you'll receive positivity. The Bible says it this way: as you sow, so shall you reap. Spiritual teachers will often say that every action creates energy. When we choose actions that create joy and positivity, we see the fruit of our actions as more joy and positivity in our lives. A version of this law can be found in most of the world's wisdom traditions and from some philosophers. These are not mathematical laws, but rather mental laws to help us create more of what we want. When we are aligned in our thoughts and actions toward a goal, that goal is likelier to happen. It's common sense to realize that our actions cause reactions. Therefore . . .
Whatever it is you want more of, start giving it first.
Another name for this law is the Law of Giving and Receiving. You'll notice that this is not the Law of Receiving and then Giving. The Giving comes first. I discussed this earlier in the section about the formula for life, which is: energy follows action. This is another way to think about that formula and use it on your journey.
How can you use the Law of Giving and Receiving in your own life? I'll tell you how I used it in mine. When I first heard about this law, I wanted to test it, so I started with love. When I wanted more love, I gave love first and was easily able to see more love flowing back to me. What I really wanted at one point in my life was more money, but I just couldn't bring myself to think about giving. After all, I had so little, and had such a huge debt. Giving seemed to be the opposite of what I needed to do. I rationalized that I would give once I had something to give.
A speaker I once heard at a conference summed it up best. She said that the Law of Giving and Receiving worked in the way we worked it. If we used the law sporadically, we would see sporadic results. If we used this life law consistently and joyfully, then we would see consistent and joyful results. That's true of anything in life, isn't it? Remember the analogy of the gym? If you go sporadically, you will see limited results. But if you go to the gym consistently and with enthusiasm, you'll see more results, and you'll see them more quickly.
I decided that I wanted to be a generous person. I began by making a small donation to my church consistently, every week. Granted, it wasn't very much, some weeks it was just a dollar or two, though at that time in my life, a dollar or two meant a great deal. It brought me great joy to be able to give, to be generous. Consequently, life started being generous with me. A friend would pick up the check at lunch, or I would get a small raise, or I would find a little money in a pocket of my trousers. While I couldn't prove that these things happened directly as a result of my giving, my intuition told me that I was placing myself in a generous stream of life. By giving, I started to take notice when I was receiving. It's certainly possible that those things would have happened anyway, but I think by developing the muscle of giving, I was also developing the muscle to notice the many ways that I received from the world.
The more I gave, the more I received. Eventually I committed myself to consistent giving, sharing a portion of all the income I received with places, people, and organizations that inspired me. It became (and has become) a joyous practice to give to others. I always give to a person or place that has inspired me to become greater than I was before or has somehow inspired me. I don't give out of obligation, that wouldn't be in keeping with the spirit that the law intends. I think of it as giving from my bounty.
DO THIS: Practice the Law of Giving and Receiving
Answer the following questions in your journal:
What do you want more of? Your answer is what you need to begin giving.
How do you want to give? Each week? Each month? Each time you are paid?
What people or organizations inspire you?
Decide a reasonable amount to give to one of the people or organizations on your list. Start small, you can increase later.
Give. Start today. Enact the Law of Giving and Receiving. Do it right now. I often like to write a note to the person or organization to include with a check or cash, but you can also give online. Decide what makes you happiest to give and do that.
Giving is a voluntary activity that can create a lot of joy. Every self-made millionaire I know has made a great habit of giving, and it certainly seems as if they receive much in return.
Review the following powerful reminders to help you take consistent, positive action.
Start: