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Not Taking Action? BS! You are ALWAYS taking action

Anything related to matters of the mind

AndrewNC

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Two morals of this story:
  1. Too many people think success will come to them if they wait long enough (time isn't real).
  2. To those procrastinators out there...Taking action isn't hard. You are ALWAYS taking action. But what action are you taking?


Everywhere you are in life is a result of some action you took in the past.

Pretend for a second that time is not real
Imagine that you stop time and freeze your life right now into a single moment (a single frame/photograph on a camera). In this picture of your life, you are stuck there, seeing the same thing over and over again.

Imagine that you live in a dream world where you feel stuck, inside the scene of a single photograph. You sit around waiting for something to change, but nothing seems to change for you. In this world, time isn’t real in the way you were brought up thinking it was. The only way to shift to the next picture and noticing change in your life, is by exerting some of your physical energy into the world and doing something different than you did a second ago.

When you exert your energy through some form of physical action, it creates a new photograph that you are now living in.

  • This energy could be in the form of doing something you’ve done before, and as a result, you would be stuck in a moment (photograph) that you’ve seen before. You will shift from the last photograph you were in, but it will just be a repeat of some old photograph you’ve already seen.
  • Or you could exert some of your energy into something new, and once you do this, you will be sitting inside a moment (photograph), that you haven’t seen before.
The next picture that you see is a reflection of the action you just took. Think of it like “Cause & Effect”.

If you’re sick and tired of staring at that same photograph, try something new and see what that new photograph looks like.

In this world, we can only notice any change in our environment into the next “frame” after we take some kind of new action in our lives, because when we take new actions, we see new results.

You are always taking action

I hear so many people say they have a hard time taking action, but with this “cause & effect” picture book we create in our life, every picture is a result of some action. You area always taking action, you’re just not taking the action that will allow you to look at a new picture in your life.

So you are stuck in one picture at a time… And now you finally realize you have the control in your life to choose to shift to a new picture. The actions you take are the only things that push you to the next picture.

Same Actions = Same Results

New Actions = New Results

Let’s speed things up

When you go to the movies, the movie projector is doing nothing more than playing a series of still frame pictures very quickly (60 or more frames per second). This creates the illusion of progressing through time. It’s just like those flip books you probably played with as a kid (see picture).

fe3a126941855137e543b435683b368b-300x169.jpg

In this world, life is nothing more than a series of still frame pictures that change so rapidly, that it gives you an illusion of time.

You previously thought that your financial situation, relationship status, fitness, and health might appear to be wrapped into a passing event that might change over time. But these things won’t ever change unless you take some type of new actions that will change the picture that you’re currently looking at.

Coming back to earth…

Do the same principles not apply here? Are you waiting for your ideal life to come to you? Stop waiting – TIME CAN’T SAVE YOU. Start doing something about it so you can finally begin to look at a new picture. Your life is nothing more than a series of millions of pictures per second that create the illusion of a movie. Take some new pictures.

Consider those things you must do that will allow you to look at a new picture that pushes you closer to your goals. Consider you couldn't not do things that you must do and also you must not necessarily do things you could do.

Further reading on the topic…

If you haven’t read the best selling book, The Power of Now By Eckhart Tolle, the literal translation of the concepts above applied to our physical world here on earth might sound like a bold statement, so let me give you a quick rundown of the message from the book:The time is always now. The past and the future are nothing more than thoughts in our head. It took me about three years after reading that book to fully wrap my head around that concept.

  • When you drove to work last week, the time was ‘now’.
  • When you drive to work in the future, while you drive to work, it will be ‘now’.
For those of you who aren’t into the new agey type of stuff, I came from that train of thought too. “Don’t ask if it’s right or wrong. Ask if it’s useful” was something a mentor once told me, and those are words I live by when I want to learn new information. If you’re kind of skeptical of what I said so far, just play along with the concepts presented in the visualization above and use that as a symbolic representation about taking new actions in your life to achieve new results.
 
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Maxjohan

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The thing with not taking action. And I think I've said this before once. Is that it's like jumping from a boat in to a big ocean with deep water. If you can't swim you will hesitate like mad. If you can swim. You will still hestiate.

By this dialogue I think not taking action is just a natural thing. To save ourselves from many failures. Because in business, most people don't know if they can swim or not.

Just because you start taking action on a business idea instantly doesn't mean that you are better off and will succeed sooner. Neither does taking action for 10 or 20 years mean that you will soon be a millionaire.

I may be in a tiny minority with my opinion. But I think there is nothing wrong with just observing and learning for a while before you start taking action.
 

RogueInnovation

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I may be in a tiny minority with my opinion. But I think there is nothing wrong with just observing and learning for a while before you start taking action.

I'd say its beneficial.

If your actions are not aware thats going to spell disaster eventually because your direction will be one dimensional and flat.
The trick is, kicking yourself out of your rut, so you can observe in a functioning way.

Small kicks do you good, big kicks, are overkill, and pointless self bullying.


Frame by frame is a great analogy OP, solid(golden for new people) post!
 

The-J

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But I think there is nothing wrong with just observing and learning for a while before you start taking action.

You may have missed the point.

Sitting and observing and learning IS taking action. It's a specific action to a maybe-not-so specific goal. You're ALWAYS taking action, whether that action is staying in school/the 9-5 and reading business books, or that action is preparing a landing page for your new product, or coming up with your targeting for your online ads.

Hell, even if your action is sitting in front of the TV eating chips.

Action fakes are types of actions that cause you to think you're moving forward when in reality, you haven't moved at all. Movement being a change between your 'now' of today and your 'now' of yesterday (or 6 months ago, or 2 years ago). You bought business cards, but nothing's changed because you haven't gotten a response from one. You didn't learn much from the experience, either (except maybe that $20 doesn't buy you a business).
 
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Maxjohan

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You may have missed the point.

Sitting and observing and learning IS taking action. It's a specific action to a maybe-not-so specific goal. You're ALWAYS taking action, whether that action is staying in school/the 9-5 and reading business books, or that action is preparing a landing page for your new product, or coming up with your targeting for your online ads.

Hell, even if your action is sitting in front of the TV eating chips.
Yeah. I guess I get it. And I sort of agree with the concept. But when I mean action. I speak more of concrete things about a business. Finding a product to sell. Registering a company. Buying advertising. Pollishing your presenation/sales process. etc.

But I know what you mean with action faking too. Buying business cards and giving them away to random people as an example, are not exactly a tangible marketing strategy.
 
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csalvato

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I may be in a tiny minority with my opinion. But I think there is nothing wrong with just observing and learning for a while before you start taking action.
A star basketball player isn't the one who is sitting on the sidelines watching and studying each match.

It's born through years of work shooting free throws on an empty court year after year.

You can't become a good blacksmith by watching someone pound out a sword. Eventually you need to grab hold of a hammer and put your iron in the fire.
 

Maxjohan

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A star basketball player isn't the one who is sitting on the sidelines watching and studying each match.

It's born through years of work shooting free throws on an empty court year after year.

You can't become a good blacksmith by watching someone pound out a sword. Eventually you need to grab hold of a hammer and put your iron in the fire.
I agree with what you mention. As those two examples are very practical fields. I don't agree that just rushing it to start a business. Is always the best option, though.
 
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csalvato

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I agree with what you mention. As those two examples are very practical fields. I don't agree that just rushing it to start a business. Is always the best option, though.
how's that been working for you?

how long have you been watching and how much money have you made?
 

Humble man

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I think many people think the action they did not take actually saved them money! And sometimes that may be true but they Guarantee themselves they did not make any more than they already had.
 

Maxjohan

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how's that been working for you?

how long have you been watching and how much money have you made?
I've made a couple thousand overall. If you want to get rich, go pitch some overpriced make money system. So why does it matter? I'm still quite young. 31 to be more exact. And I am trying to find something that fit my personality. But I am not gonna sell any gimmicks like make money systems etc.
 
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csalvato

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I've made a couple thousand overall. If you want to get rich, go pitch some overpriced make money system. So why does it matter? I'm still quite young. 31 to be more exact. And I am trying to find something that fit my personality. But I am not gonna sell any gimmicks like make money systems etc.
How long have you been watching/studying?
 

csalvato

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Why the F*ck does it matter? LOL. What matters is how much money I have when I die. LOL.

Your assertion is that sitting around and waiting/studying is as or more productive than getting in the trenches.

I would say that the amount of time you kept your hands clean matters very much.

You've been on this forum for at least 4 years and have made thousands of dollars. Like Kevin O'Leary says, you have a hobby, not a business.

In fact, I'm not challenging you at all. Just enumerating facts.
 
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AndrewNC

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Your assertion is that sitting around and waiting/studying is as or more productive than getting in the trenches.

I would say that the amount of time you kept your hands clean matters very much.

You've been on this forum for at least 4 years and have made thousands of dollars. Like Kevin O'Leary says, you have a hobby, not a business.

In fact, I'm not challenging you at all. Just enumerating facts.
I'm going to disagree with you on this one and agree with @Maxjohan - It is better to really get the right knowledge in your head before just going out there and randomly trying to take action.

I really want to be healthy in my older years so I'm gonna start going to the gym when I'm sure I have the perfect workout routine. I'm gonna read a lot of books and really get the right exercises and diet down before I start going though.

I don't want to go into the gym and do the bench press the wrong way. It's better to really read up on how to do the perfect bench press before I potentially grip the barbell too close together and not workout the right parts of my chest.

This knowledge will really help me in a few years.

In fact, I've been following this strategy for the last couple of years and I've got some AMAZING insights from reading bodybuilding.com

<grabs Doritos>.

You fool.....How is your "I actually workout and eat healthy every day" thing working out for you?
 

tafy

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I think there is nothing wrong with just observing and learning for a while before you start taking action.

Absolutely, Reading and learning and getting your mindset straight is key. You dont wanna jump in and blow your load on some shitty idea when your a complete newb.

Getting your mindset correct is so important, its like a fat girl that wants to lose weight, so she takes instant action "Tomorrow I will start this new diet" a week of action and she fails. Why? because her mindset was wrong.

But.. You should try small things while learning, things that wont kill you if you fail.
 

IceCreamKid

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I think the point that @csalvato is trying to make is that one should be careful not to get stuck in the learning loop. There is certainly value in doing research, but one must be careful not to spend years in research mode.
 

The-J

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I think the point that @csalvato is trying to make is that one should be careful not to get stuck in the learning loop. There is certainly value in doing research, but one must be careful not to spend years in research mode.

Quoted for truth.

Learning and doing are both part of the same process. Doing alone won't bring you success. Learning alone won't bring you success. You gotta do both, over and over again, and what you find is often not as important as how you found it.

tl;dr everyone is right here but there's a big picture to be looked at
 

Mattie

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The past and the future are nothing more than thoughts in our head
I agree this is what it is, and I never read that book, and probably learned it from Eastern Philosophy, but I believe it took me a few months to grasp that concept.
The thing with not taking action. And I think I've said this before once. Is that it's like jumping from a boat in to a big ocean with deep water. If you can't swim you will hesitate like mad. If you can swim. You will still hestiate.

I think I may not always know how to swim, but I know if you hesitate to long you start sinking, so I know to keep swimming, because there's always a buoy some place where you get something right, and you start swimming again further and further as you go along. lol

And best bet I've discovered is take action and educate yourself as you go. There's a million things you need to learn, and a million actions to be taken. It's kind of like if someone threw a car in front of you and you had to repair the engine, you'd have the info next to you while you're working on it to figure out what to do. And if you need the car to get to work, you're not going to just sit and study for five weeks, and then decide to repair it.
 
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ThaRooster

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Learn some, do some, learn some, do some. There's too many different analogies you can say that make sense but don't exactly apply. You can't expect a doctor to become a doctor without studying nor can you expect a baseball player to hit a baseball without practice. Studying is just a part of taking action, if you take action without studying you are more likely to fail. If you study without taking action you fail because you never started. Yin and yang
 

Mattie

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Mattie

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Maxjohan

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Your assertion is that sitting around and waiting/studying is as or more productive than getting in the trenches.
It's not about being productive for me. It's about getting it right as fast as possible. When you find a fastlane idea that you want to pursuit. Knowledge/reading/learning is a big part of that in my opinion. Especially in business.

You've been on this forum for at least 4 years and have made thousands of dollars. Like Kevin O'Leary says, you have a hobby, not a business.
LOL. In the next 4-10 years I could make $20 million or so. No? Can I not?

In fact, I'm not challenging you at all. Just enumerating facts.
You have your beliefs of course. But they are certainly not facts. More than the facts you have about me. That I am not such a huge success like you, from taking massive action.

LOL. J/K with the last sentence.
 

Maxjohan

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I think the point that @csalvato is trying to make is that one should be careful not to get stuck in the learning loop. There is certainly value in doing research, but one must be careful not to spend years in research mode.
The same could be said about taking action. And never really knowing what the h*ll you are doing. Because you haven't done your re-search and are missing a few puzzle pieces. Right?
 
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Andy Black

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This is how I view it:

www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/the-need-for-speed.58742

We need a continuous cycle of improvement. Take action, measure the results, learn from it, take new action. Repeat and move forward.

The market pays for results.

It doesn't pay for knowledge (I can't invoice you because I read a book).

Neither does it pay for activity (I can't invoice you because I was really busy).
 
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Mattie

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There's always missing puzzle pieces, and when you're finished with one puzzle, the next one comes along. There's always a point you don't know what you're doing until you've mastered it, and you move on to something else and master it. I suppose that's why some are called master minds.
 

csalvato

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The same could be said about taking action. And never really knowing what the h*ll you are doing. Because you haven't done your re-search and are missing a few puzzle pieces. Right?

What's your plan to get from 2k to 2MM?

Not sure why you are so defensive.

You're obviously looking for an argument and not any kind of self reflection.

Don't know what to tell you. Best of luck.
 
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Maxjohan

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What's your plan to get from 2k to 2MM?
No... What's your plan? I'm not gonna answer shit til you answer yourself. Just so you can slam me with some Kevin O'Leary quote. I'm not falling for this bait.

Not sure why you are so defensive.
I'm not defensive at all. Just wanted to prove a point. That you can look at it both ways.

You're obviously looking for an argument and not any kind of self reflection.
Where did you get that from? Just wondering.
 
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Jamesdoesmith

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The constant thing I have ran into being so young. Is that there are times when you look at all things you can do and they are exhausted. Or you are "done" in a way for that day. Hoping you are getting enough done for yourself. Like just doing your math homework. Understanding that even the most small and menial action on this journey can be the action for the day. Get your homework done.
 

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