Don’t Hold Back on Your Ideas

Do you know there is one thing that makes or breaks your daily focus for the ideas that matter the most? If you live your day keeping just this one thing in mind, it can make a huge difference in the process of goal achievement? That single virtue draws the line between go getters and lazy lad. Living with it daily ensures not only the guaranteed progress towards your desired direction but also offers a great peace of mind while you act on your thoughts.

In the epic book of Mahabharata Duryodhan says:

|| जानामि धर्मम् न च में प्रवृति: जानामि अधर्मम् न च में निवृति: ||

[English]

|| Janami Dharmam Na Cha Me Pravrutthih Janamyadharmam Na Cha Me Nivrutthih ||

[Meaning]

I know what dharma (righteousness) is, yet I cannot get myself to follow it!
I know what adharma (vice) is, yet I cannot retire from it!

St. Paul also wrote about the similar thing in different words:

“I don’t understand myself. I want to do what is right but I do not do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate … It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what’s right, I inevitably do what’s wrong.” (Romans 7:15)

This happens to us all, without exception. And no the reason is not the lack of information. In fact, we are living in an era of information overload, where we are bombarded with “how-to” information from all directions through various books, blogs, videos, audios and seminars etc. I am sure below titles would seem familiar to you:

• How to stop worrying and start living.
• How to eat less and exercise more.
• How to spend less and save more.
• How to Earn1K on side and build your business empire.
• How to learn the Art of Meditation and Mindfulness.
• How to fulfill your career dream.
• How to take care of your body, mind and spirit.
• Marriage mantras to take care of relationships.

and many more such things. But this load of information only gives us a short blast of energy, and then it’s back to the status quo. It doesn’t really help us to change our daily behavior. We are still the same person at the end of the day – doing just the complete opposite of what we know is good for us!

• We worry more and live less in a day.
• We over eat and under exercise in a day.
• We spend more and save less in a day.
• We skip meditation that we learnt from a recent retreat or yoga classes and we let our mind run in millions of different directions without even being aware of it.
• We don’t explore any other career opportunity to sharpen our skills to remain competent in the job market.
• Taking care of physical fitness is the last priority in our to-do list.
• In our relationship we take each other for granted, forget to express gratitude, appreciation, love, care and respect for each other.

And when we don’t find ourselves doing complete opposite things, than we are sure to find ourselves busy running the rat race doing the same thing over and over again, getting the same result and then complaining about it. Not to mention that majority of us are born procrastinator. We don’t pursue things we know are good for us.

Why do we do this?

In my opinion, there are mainly 7 reasons for this:

1. We don’t love ourselves: This is strange but true. We don’t have enough love for ourselves. We don’t give ourselves solid reasons to love ourselves other than being a live and breathing entity to experience worldly pleasure. Moreover, we are our own worst critics, at times. That’s why it’s easy to be negative for ourselves than to be positive. Therapist and author Dr. Pat Allen said it beautifully “The only way you know you love yourself — or anyone else — is by the commitments you are willing to make and keep.” We easily break our own commitments with our own selves.
2. We have fear: Although 83% of our fear never comes true, yet we have a fear of unknown, a fear of failure and a fear of rejection. There is only one seat in our mind for Fear and Confidence both to sit. And only one of them can sit at a time. Also, you will notice that to be afraid of anything is almost effortless and most convenient than to remain confident when facing uncertainty.
3. We resist change: Only change is constant in this world, nothing else. Still, we prefer to be in our comfort zone a lot more than to be in the zone of uncertainty and change. Change always seems like a challenge.
4. We don’t know what to do and from where to begin and how to maintain the momentum: Sometimes, we genuinely don’t know from where to begin and how to continue? Or if we start something then how to maintain the momentum of it? Because of this we either become lazy or confused.
5. We get distracted: There is so much going on around us every single minute that if we don’t have a well-organized mind, we easily can get distracted. Think of this, your mobile blinks and you tempted to check your what’s app message where someone sent an interesting youtube video link about some easy exercise to loose belly fat. While watching youtube video it plays some advertising of your favourite vacation destination and you click on it and it just lends you on some travel blog and you check the airfare and hotel fare…and the cycle goes on and on. If you are not clear about your own agenda for today, this tsunami of information drags you away with it. And you will lose your focus.
6. Lack of will power: Just like other muscles of the body ‘will power’ is also a muscle of your subtle body which needs to be exercised daily to train and develop it. If we don’t use our will-to-do and will-to-excel quite often, our will power gets diminished day by day. To keep it sharp we need to use it every single day.
7. Lack of Clarity: Clarity of thoughts is also the main and the biggest reason why we lack inspiration in our lives to start doing things that matters and to persist till the end. This also deprives us of exploring our passion and purpose in life – the two much needed ingredients to lead a meaningful life.

How can we make sure our mind doesn’t get distracted and our day remains filled with full focused actions for our goals? Is there any solution to this? The answer is: Yes. Very easy and doable, in fact.

How do I know that? I know it because I have been through all these stages and I also must admit that I too was a procrastinator.

I did have the idea to start this blog, however it took me three years to overcome all those stages, challenges and to actually start doing it. One day I was listening to the great speech of Jim Kerry (commencement speech at MUM’s class of 2014) and he said one very profound and penetrating sentence:

You Can Fail at What You Don’t Want, So Take a Chance on Doing What You Love.

And boom! I started brain storming the same day about the name for my blog on a piece of paper; and the very second day I registered my domain name with Bluehost.

That’s when I realized, that for the most of the things that I wanted to do and should have been doing and yet I was not doing, or was procrastinating them all this years, could have easily been overcome through this simple yet powerful mantra of Do-It-Now.

I don’t know what are we waiting for? Are we waiting for a perfect magical moment filled with both sun light and fragrance giving us green signal that now we can start acting on our best ideas!!?? Well it never happens and it will never happen for anyone on this planet.

Do-It-Now is truly the only way to get things done before we get distracted by anything and our 24 hours just passes by living a mediocre life.

If you have read autobiographies of successful people, all of them have this common virtue in their character – to live with a sense of urgency. That’s what makes them stand for what they believe into. They never delay in taking actions for their worthy ideas.

Life is too short and every single moment is a critical. We must live with this sense of urgency.

In fact, I’d admit that I am at my best when I keep this attitude to live my day to day life. I experience many benefits out of this such as, I get better clarity in my thoughts, sharp focus in my actions and my eyes and ears are always open to scan and hear the knocks of new opportunities.

Try it, to believe me. Live your day with Do-It-Now attitude.

Let’s dive a little dipper into this.

Every idea has two parts: Thinking part and Action part. It’s wise to think thoroughly before we execute or pursue any ideas to avoid any unpleasant surprises. Most of the people try to do these both jobs (thinking and taking actions) at the same time in the same day. This results in a lot of waste of time, energy and efforts. Instead try this simple two steps process:

Step – 1: In the evening find a comfortable corner and sit with a pen and paper. Let’s find out what you would like to do tomorrow? What are the important thoughts or ideas you would like to pursue tomorrow? What is it that you would like to focus on and take actions on? And why? In short, have your full focus on doing the thinking part of the idea, and give yourself enough time to think around and through the ideas of your choice. Come up with few actions that you think you would like to take tomorrow for these ideas. Write them down.

Step – 2: The next day, now you don’t have to stress your mind to decide whether you should pursue this idea or that idea? What is best for you to invest your effort and energy in today? All these have been taken care of yesterday. Today is the day to act with full conviction and focus on your selected thoughts. Your priority for today is only to concentrate to accomplish those planned actions. That’s it.

Reserve Your Yesterday for Thinking and Your Today for Actions.

This is the simplest way to remain focused on task at hand with utmost clarity in mind. You will feel lighter and be able to live 24 hours with a peaceful smile on your face :)

Now, of course I am not saying that this is possible for all of your ideas. There are thousands of ideas run through your brain every day. There may be times which require you to do both think and act simultaneously. And that’s okey too. However, try to systematize and simplify the process of goal achievement as much as you can with the above mentioned two steps process.

In nutshell, it’s always now or never. Embracing the Do-It-Now attitude is the ultimate key to avoid procrastination and start making moves in the right direction.

Any great thought crosses to your mind, don’t let it just pass by, act on it Now – Today!

Inculcating Do-It-Now attitude helps you to replace question marks with exclamation marks!

• The unwritten letter? Write it today!
• The old friend you’ve been meaning to reconnect with? Get connected today!
• The apology that is long overdue? Apologize today!
• The book you’ve talked about writing? Start writing today!
• The visit you’ve been intending to make? Make it today!
• The business you were going to start someday? Get started today!
• The race you were going to run? Start running today!
• The daily exercise you were going to do? Start exercising today!
• The language you were going to learn? Start learning today!
• The musical instrument you’ve always wanted to play? Start playing today!
• The resolution to give back to the community? Begin giving back today!
• The person with whom you’ve been meaning to share your faith? Share it today!
• The time you’ve promised to spend with your children? Spend it with them today!
• The broken relationship you’ve wanted to restore? Work at it today!
• The decision to confront your fears and dump all of those excuses? Do it today!

Do it today not tomorrow, that’s really the key idea of today’s message. So get started and get started right now. You can change your life today and the time to do it now!
(The above extract is taken from: http://www.100daychallenge.com/bonus-5-do-it-now/ )

Remember success is all about Progress and not Perfection. You need to take Actions to be Perfect, you don’t have to be Perfect to take Actions. As only Actions create Results & Results bring Perfection.
Find out three tasks that you would like to take actions on and do it now – today!

Let Do-It-Now be your magical mantra to live a daily life.

Enjoy and Have fun!

Bharat

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