Take The Plunge – Live Like You Want To

We’ve talked about reaching out to different platforms and sources in order to change your beliefs and change from negative thinking to positive thinking as one method of snapping out of the rut in your life and start living a new reality.

For example, in this blog post about being more aware about what you consume, you gain control of the messages that are entering your mind and quickly replace negative thoughts with limitless possibilities.

Equally important though is actually taking the plunge and beginning to LIVE the journey that will be your new reality leaving your old thoughts, behaviors and habits behind in search of new feelings, experiences and results in your life.

True Life Change Will Not Happen Until You Take Action

With any learning or self-improvement that you undertake in your life, there is the probability that you simply consume rather than consume and then create…here’s the difference.

CONSUMPTION

Consumption of education, training and self-improvement means is taking in the inspiration, knowledge, experience and skills that do help you in the following ways:

• Give you hope that your life can be different
• Teach you the skills that will help you reach that next level in your life
• Provide you added confidence and certainty based both on the fact that you KNOW more and that you have come across someone else who has been down the path you are now heading
• Replaces and re-programs your mind to accept new ideas, be more positive, assess your limiting beliefs replacing them with expanded beliefs that will let you look at life differently
• Puts you in contact with others who can further help and inspire you on your life journey

That’s all very powerful stuff…necessary to expand your potential, create the swell of desire that will push you to the next level in your life

However, consumption in itself will NOT get you any further in life…in fact, if you ONLY consume it can create new stress and frustration as you expand your expectation and hope only to see that your life situation does not change substantially over time.

Where there was little hope and little progress before, now you have the lack of congruence around your expectations being sky-high, with the reality remaining the same…not much better off right?

This is the situation I find many people who are training in self-improvement…they spend months, years and indeed even lifetimes committing themselves to following, learning, and studying self-improvement but rarely put these concepts into practice and end up in state of extreme frustration.

CREATING

Creating, on the other hand, is the process of taking that knowledge, skill, hope, enthusiasm and improved self-confidence and doing something with it…taking action!

This is exactly why our highly regarded training program SNAP: 4 Step System For Getting Unstuck In Your Life includes practical exercises with each lesson and not JUST the tips, techniques and steps to take to get unstuck and achieve the next level of greatness in your life.

Here are a few examples that hopefully help you move from consumption to creation…

1. You learn about overcoming shyness and having increased self-confidence, you realize that self-talk is important and that you are your own worst enemy AND you learn that over time, as you practice a skill, you will get better.  In order to truly benefit from this self-improvement, you want to take those situations that used to shut you down and slowly begin to practice overcoming this “shut-down” response.   This may mean looking people in the eye, saying hello to a stranger, starting a conversation with someone who you previously you would not have been able to do and perhaps talk in front of a small group (say 6 people) on the way to speaking in front of larger groups.   In other words, put what you learn into action and that is where the improvement really happens.
2. Another example, you learn breathing and meditation exercises to manage stress – again this depends on you taking action and being creative around how you implement these concepts into your life.  Meditation takes practice, make sure it becomes a new habit for the next 30-days and no matter WHAT, you stick with it.   Try your breathing exercises before and after stressful situations – write out your experiences (another great method for handling stress)

If I had my choice, improving your life in one area or another would be 30% learning and 70% taking action.

You learn far more by taking action than you do by consuming knowledge and inspiration from others.

While you MUST first consume to get the ball rolling, make a key part of your self improvement to always ACT and CREATE based on each lesson you learn – make that a daily habit and you will be amazed at how the combination of consumption and creation will improve your life.