Are You Action Oriented?

"Let's Go. Go. Go!!"      "Where are we going?"

My 4-year old nephew.  So full of life.  Boundless energy.  Always seeking the next big adventure.  His life is one discovery after another.

I was also taken aback by his exclamation.  Our lives are full of activity, but do we fill our lives with Action?  Do we know where we're going? 

Webster defines Action as the accomplishment of a thing.  And Success is the accomplishment of an Aim or Goal.

Action is different than Activity.  Action moves towards your goal.  It's your journey to achieve what you want …. your success! 

Sit back for a moment and think about what you want to accomplish today.  Write it down.  What Action do you need to take today to accomplish that thing?  Voila!  You have today's Action Plan!  Today's Success is within reach!

Now let's hone this a bit.  Any activity not aligned with accomplishing the thing distracts and derails.  Simple, right?  However, in our attention deficit world, visual and auditory cues compete and demand our attention.  Headlines are designed to make us feel hurried, fearful and inadequate.  In all that distraction, we lose sight of the simple formula:

ACTION > ACCOMPLISHMENT > SUCCESS

Imagine someone following you around all day today.  They record on an Activity Sheet how you spend your time in 15-minute increments.  What would you discover?

On a project during my consulting career, we conducted a Time Study for various roles.  Before engaging hospital employees, we created Tally Sheets and tracked our own time in 15-minute increments for one week. 

WOW! 

I gasped at my results.  If time indicates our values, OUCH!  I thought I valued my friends, but when I analyzed where I spent my time, friends barely registered a blip!   Administrative tasks consumed me.  I spent so much time resolving spontaneous issues that seemed important in the moment, I didn't spend time doing my core job.  No wonder I felt like I was running around in circles! 

So much wasted time!  Lots of Activity, not much Action. 

Time is precious.   Where you spend your time, defines you.  But because we have a weird belief in our personal immortality, we treat Time … as a commodity.  We fritter away our time with frantic Activity, not Action.

"Where are We Going?"

Let's go back to the Action Plan you created for today.  Let's take the next step.  What do you want to accomplish by the end of this year?  Do you have week-by-week Actions planned to achieve your year-end goal?  With no Action Plan to guide your time, you're allowing everything else to take priority!  Be bold and make a commitment to build your End of Year Action Plan right now!

Okay, one step further.   This one's real hard.  What do you want to accomplish in 20 years?  Yikes!  You probably don't have a week-by-week Action Plan for that, do you?  More importantly, though, do your Actions today move you towards that 20-year goal?  Remember, Action is the accomplishment of a thing.  If you're not moving towards your 20-year goal today, you're not really taking Action. 

Time is precious.  Say this aloud.  'My Life is NOT a commodity.'

Let's live into our Life Missions TODAY … and change the world for Good!