Want To Succeed? Beware The Activity Trap
OK, I’ve got a dream. Now all I need to do is get busy, work hard, and soon…soon…
If only it were that simple.
It’s always tempting to believe that if we just get our act together and go for it, and somehow we will achieve, we will succeed, we will soon be living our dreams.
Reality check — success isn’t built on busyness.
It’s my experience, and we see it around us every day, that it’s so easy to fall into the trap of believing that activity is going to produce results.
Tell me I’m wrong, but don’t you spend a lot of your day doing things for other people and receiving very little in return? How long can we go on like that thinking that we are getting somewhere?
I used to justify this by calling it a career 🙂
When my life was off track, doing things made me feel better and gave me a little hope.
However, the truth is that filling up my life with activity only masked over the underlying problems and meant that I never addressed the real issues.
Simply put, activity does not always mean results
I discovered the activity trap when I was going through a process of life-change.
I’d come to a place in myself where I knew it was time to leave behind my computer business and focus on what I really wanted to do. It was now or never to go for my dreams, but everything was a muddle.
And in the middle of all the confusion, the fears and doubts, obligations and family pressure, I would be relieved when I could get back into doing what I knew best: in my comfort zone fixing other people’s problems.
The activity trap would open up like a hole in the ground, and I would happily fall into it.
The busyness of the activity trap helped me to escape from the real heart of the matter: I wasn’t living out of my dreams and desires.
What’s strange is that this kind of behavior is really a twisted type of procrastination. Some may even call it an addiction.
Success is made up of small, intentional steps.
Motivational speaker Jim Rohn teaches that failure is not an event; it’s the inevitable outcome of making a few mistakes every day. If I kept on making the mistake of believing activity was going to get results, there was only one place I was going to end up.
What was needed, which I didn’t appreciate at the time, was not action, but the right kind of action.
Knowing and applying the right kind of action on a daily basis will begin a transformation on every level, affecting your outlook, your career, family, finances, and ultimately your dreams.
This is were getting a focus is so important, and it works together with an increased intentionalityto bring about desired results in our lives.
A few simple disciplines practiced every day…
When I was faced with trying to make big changes in my life, I had to understand that a few simple things are going to get big results.
So getting a grip on what’s really important to you, deciding to learn and develop new skills, growing in your self-awareness and confidence in yourself, all these kind of actions can begin with small steps.
If you find that fears are holding you back, bring your focus onto the kind of results you want, and look at what needs to be done to get there.
If you find yourself hyper-focusing, which means you’re so involved in your work or your present problems that you’re oblivious to what’s going on around you, remember to take time to focus on the why, and begin to take action, small steps, that will begin to take you in the right direction.
So what’s going to get us moving in the right direction? The answer is discipline.
According to Jim Rohn, and I do encourage you to listen to some of his teaching, a few simple disciplines practiced every day can lead to living a fulfilling and successful life.
I know, I hate the word Discipline – it speaks of hard work, effort, punishment. But being disciplined simply means putting aside some time each day to work on yourself, to prioritize your personal growth and do something each day to move you forward towards your dreams.
The key is to decide what’s important now. What’s going to get you moving in the direction of your desires?
It’s time to become an apprentice. Decide on where you want to go, learn from a skilled master, and begin to put into practice on a daily basis what you are learning.
Has busyness taken over from your dreams? Start thinking of Success as a simple process of consistency:
Prioritize > Learn > Practice
Article written by Craig R. Pennell for artplusmarketing.com
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