How To Change Your Life: Part 4 – Taking Action

: Image by SuperFantastic via Flickr

This is the fourth post in a series on how to change your life. If you want to start at the beginning of the series, head on over to: How To Change Your Life: Part 1 – Become Clear.

Before we talk about taking action, lets quickly recap what steps you should take before you move on with this one:

If you’ve taken care of the first three steps, you’re ready to begin taking action!

Why is Taking Action Required?

Over the years I’ve come across many books and articles that say that if you want to change your life, you only need to become clear about what you want and then align your thoughts and feelings with your desire. Once you do that, supposedly the law of attraction will magically bring whatever you desire into your life.

I completely disagree with this! Every story I’ve ever read about a successful person who achieved what they wanted in life, involved them taking action to get where they wanted to go.

Now, I’m not saying that I don’t believe in the law of attraction. My personal belief is that the Universe will bring you what you want through the actions you take. It might drop what you want in your lap, but you’ll have a better chance of succeeding if you start taking action.

If all you did was sit around visualizing all day, people in overalls will eventually show up at your home and start repossessing all your stuff.

So How Does Taking Action Work With The Law of Attraction?

If you first align your thoughts and feelings with your goals, then take action, three things will occur:

You will notice a lot more opportunities showing up in your life.
You will notice that your actions are easier and more effective.
You will start having more ideas on how to get what you want.

This is the Universe working the law of attraction in your favor. By helping you move toward your goals instead of just giving them to you.

Why Won’t The Universe Just Give Me What I Want?

I believe that the reason that action is almost always required is that it accomplishes three things:

First, you will have a much bigger sense of accomplishment and boost to your self-esteem if you had to work to get what you want.
Second, you tend to appreciate what you’ve achieved more when you had to work for it. And gratitude is a wonderful feeling!
Third, when you take action, you often encounter problems and difficulties that will force you to grow and become a better person. Growing as a person allows you to become the type of person who is capable and responsible enough to have what you desire.

How To Begin Taking Action

The first thing you need to consider is that if you truly want something, you can’t make excuses as to why you can’t go and get it.

If you think you’re to busy, what can you give up doing that really isn’t as important as your goals and dreams? Learn to prioritize where you give your time and energy so that they go to things that are truly important to you. Make sure devote time every week, or (better yet) every day, to doing things that will help you achieve your goals.

Once you’ve allocated the time to take action, the simplest way to decide what actions to take is to ask yourself this question:

What one thing can I do today that will move me at least one small step closer to my goal?

If your goal seems way to big to know what you can do to move closer to it, break it down into smaller sub-goals.

Keep The Momentum Going

Getting started is the hardest part. Once you begin taking action, you will find that it’s easier to keep going. Use this to your advantage and make sure that you regularly schedule time to work toward you goals. After a while, you will find that it starts to become a habit.

Don’t Waste Any More Of Your Life

Stop settling for the life you have if you desire something more. Remember, time is going to pass by anyways, so you might as well be moving toward what your goals.

This concludes the taking action step. Make sure to join me in the next post where we’ll be putting together all the steps of how to change your life.

For more information on the action step of how to change your life, check out the book Taking Action!