TODAY! What Will You Do?

If you are still talking about what you did yesterday, you haven't done much today. - Author Unknown

As wonderful as past achievements may make you feel, they cannot compare to what you are capable of today. It’s natural to want to reflect upon our previous accomplishments because they make us feel good about ourselves.

We can remember the glory of the battle, the difficulties we overcame during the journey and glow with pride as we point out, “I did that.” That’s great, but the very next words out of your mouth should be, “What will I do next?”

Instead of pacifying yourself with memories of what you’ve done before, you can choose to make it your mission to always keep growing, evolving and producing ever greater works. If you do this, you may be surprised to note that you rarely feel compelled to look back at your past accomplishments.

Why? Because you’ll be too darn busy being productive! Rather than dwelling on your past success, let it fuel your next endeavor. Besides a feeling of pride, your accomplishments can offer something else of value: confidence to try something new! Sometimes we do just the opposite and use our past accomplishments as an excuse not to do anything more.

Whether we fear not being able to top a previous victory or we simply don’t want to try, we decide it’s safer to stay where we are and bask in the afterglow. Ridiculous!

Let excitement about your next endeavor fill you up. Let it quicken your heart and flush your face as you look forward to your next phase of growth.

As exciting as your past achievements may have been, they cannot hold a candle to what you will do today! When you are too old and infirm to produce anymore, THEN you can look back and be proud of all you accomplished.

Until then, you’re not nearly done yet. You’ve got mountains to climb, fears to face, doubts to overcome, and astounding achievements waiting to be realized. Go to it!

Taking The Right Meaningful Action

Now that it's all over, what did you really do yesterday that's worth mentioning? - Coleman Cox

How easy it is to procrastinate on the things we really want to do. “Tomorrow” is always more attractive because we envision ourselves better able to conquer our fears, overcome challenges, and develop the motivation we need to move forward.

We don’t want to do these things now because we trick ourselves into believing that we don’t yet have the courage, time, money, experience or resources that will make it feasible.

However, the problem occurs when tomorrow comes and we find ourselves still feeling intimidated, fearful, or hesitant to take action. Rather than pushing through feelings of resistance and taking action anyway, we find it easier to refine our plans, visualize our success, do further research – anything except leave our comfort zones and take action.

If we allow ourselves to be stuck in a cycle like this for too long, eventually we reach a point where we are almost paralyzed by fear. We want to move forward and we know how important it is to break the hypnotic spell that holds us captive, but it seems impossible to do so.

The longer we stay locked into a cycle of inaction, the more effort we will need to break out of it. As time goes on, we find ourselves looking at what we’ve (not) created in our lives, feeling regretful about all the missed opportunities we could have taken advantage of, but didn’t. We look at our level of success, our living conditions, the state of our physical bodies, and we feel shameful about squandering the gifts and talents we have. We know darn well we could do better, but we don’t.

Do yourself a favor: take action NOW. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Don’t let your dreams die a slow, neglected death. Don’t fool yourself into believing that you have all the time in the world.

Don’t let another day go by that you will later look back at what you didn’t do with regret. If you begin by taking even small steps forward, taking action on even the tiniest of aspirations, you will gain confidence.

Before long, you’ll grow to love the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction you get from moving forward. Then you will be able to look back at each “yesterday” with a feeling of pride about what you’ve been able to accomplish.

Putting Your Knowledge Into Action

All the so-called "secrets of success" will not work unless you do. - Author Unknown

Have you ever noticed how many “latest, greatest” books, videos, and material there is out there? Walk into any bookstore or take a cruise around the Internet and thousands of titles will scream out at you:

The Underground Secrets to . . . Earn a Massive Income by . . . The Little-Known Techniques for. . . Amazing Powers of . . . - It’s all too easy to get sucked into buying “how-to” after “how-to”. Are any of these products helpful? Yes, but only if you actually put the knowledge into action!

Most of us are great learners. We love to read, watch, listen to, and absorb new ideas like a sponge. We love exploring new techniques and ideas to better our lives, improve our relationships, make more money, get a better body, and so on. However, a problem arises when we spend all of our time searching for that “latest, greatest” tip that will propel us to the success we desire.

What we forget is that the most helpful material out there is only as valuable as our ability to use it effectively in our lives. If we just absorb it and let it sit idle in our heads, not much change is going to take place.

If we take even the most moderately helpful ideas and put them into action, we immediately reap the rewards. Rather than having a vague wisp of knowledge rattling around in our minds, we now have a solid addition to our personal growth process. With each new book or video we buy, we can increase the value we receive from it by taking time to work with the techniques or ideas before moving on to something else.

Over time, this habit helps us to create lives that are well-rounded, deep and enriched. Rather than a shelf full of useless tools and techniques, we have a library of resources and knowledge that can empower us to take charge of our lives.

As time goes on, we also come to understand that less is more. We don’t feel compelled to keep buying more and more and more self-help products – only the ones we know intuitively will add something of value to our long-term progress.