Take Action: How to Create a Life You Love, Part 3

Take Action is part 3 in the series about creating a life you love. Read part 1, and  part 2.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.~ Lao Tzu

This is the most important step toward changing hour life. You can have a perfect plan or a very sketchy map pointing you where you want to go, but neither will get you any closer to your goal if you do not take action.We all have reasons why we fail to take action: Because we are afraid (either of failing or succeeding, equally). Or because we don't know where to begin. Maybe we worry about what others will think of us (I have an old inner voice that tells me I'm "too big for my britches" pretty often). I'll come back to how to deal with fear in a later post in this series, but one thing I know for sure: The antidote to fear is action.You can talk about what you want. You can tell people what you are going to do (you know, someday...). You can daydream about how great your life is going to be.But you will never get any closer to what you desire until you take steps toward it. But they don't have to be giant leaps, as Lao Tzu points out.

Get into action

Identify one thing you can do today or this week to move you forward. Put it on your to do list. Make sure the line item starts with a verb, and ideally the step should be small enough that you can do it in 15 minutes or less.Instead of “grad school research,” say, “research California College of the Arts graduate admissions requirements.”See the difference?If the task is too big, if you can’t see the actual next action you need to take, you will get stuck right there.So break it down and then write it down.And then do it. 

What is your action step? Leave a comment below for some accountability!

Read Part 4 in this series next.