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hey this is Leo for actualize org and today I want to talk about the number one reason why you're probably not succeeding or getting the kind of results that you want in your life so what is this reason well the reason is very simple you're not taking enough action you need to take more action and what's really bad about this problem is that not only are you not taking enough action your brain is tricking you into thinking that you are so you don't even realize what's going on here so let's talk about how this works you have to make sure that you take action on whatever it is that you're studying or researching or trying to get in place in your life there's this tendency just to do a lot of mental masturbation about it you're going to read some books you're going to watch some seminars you're going to talk to some friends about it you're going to journal about it you're going to do everything but the thing that you need to be doing to get the results that you actually want and in the end the action trumps everything else you can do all that other stuff and I think that's awesome I think it's great to talk to a coach about what you want to do I think it's great to journal about what you want to do and visualize it do all the exercises I love doing that stuff I think that stuff is important but there's also this tendency to get sidetracked by that and to to fall into this into this mind frame that doing that kind of stuff doing the pre-planning phases doing the thinking is enough by itself and what happens is you get so drawn into that you invest too much time in the theory and not enough time in the actual practice and actually going out there and putting the steps in place to make whatever it is that you want to come about actually come about this is very tricky because you have a tendency to to go into the theory and not do the action when the action is what brings you the results and then what ends up happening is you start wondering and you start doubting yourself and you start telling yourself well this planning doesn't work I keep I keep rehashing this stuff I keep reading material I get more information and none of it seems to work for me it's all a bunch of marketing none of it really helps and I seem to be just be stuck and frustrated with where I'm at right now now there are a few examples of this and I want to really go through a couple of examples to make sure that you're being strict on yourself with your follow-through if you're not following through then you really have no no right to expect results so the trick here is to make sure that you actually are following through for example let's say you've gone on a diet and you want to lose some weight and you're going on a diet and you're going to the gym those are the two ways that you're going to you've decided to lose your weight well let's get very real about it if you've been trying this before if you've been trying in the past or you're trying it right now and maybe you say you've been on on it for a week or two ask yourself is the action there and is the action consistent when I'm talking about action it needs to be consistent action especially in something like losing weight so for example if you really ask yourself you've started your new diet you're starting your gym regimen well how many days in a row have you stuck to it interesting right what's the answer have you stuck to it for five days in a row ten days in a row 20 days in a row and if you haven't if you haven't stuck with it for 30 days consistently what kind of result could you expect other than what you've got right now and that's basically the way that you were the status quo if you're going to the gym let's say you need to be going to the gym five days a week and you're missing one day every other day what kind of results could you expect this sounds very simple and it seems kind of like duh yeah if you're missing days going to the gym then you shouldn't be getting results but your mind tricks you see your mind tells you that well you know I've really made this commitment to be going to the gym now and I made this commitment to be eating healthier but yeah you know I still I still go out Friday nights and have and knock back a few drinks and I still have those ice creams once in a while and I still I still I still go into the pantry late at night and grab some chips and maybe twice a week I just I'm I'm too lazy and I'm too tired and I don't I don't go to the gym but you know and and then and then you're complaining that your diet doesn't work and that you're not losing weight you know somehow I just can't lose this way yeah no you can't lose the weight because the action is not there and it's not consistent you're not you're not being disciplined with yourself about the action that you're taking how about if you're trying to quit a bad habit let's say you're trying to quit smoking well my question for you is if you're trying to quit smoking or you have in the past and it hasn't worked for you and you're frustrated about it Mike my civil question is how consistently have you kicked smoking so how many days if you're getting smoking right now how many days have you actually not smoked consistent five days 10 days 20 days if you couldn't make it through 30 days of consistently not smoking that how the hell can you expect any result other than the status quo which is what you've always had alright if you're popping a smoke every other day then you're not going to quit smoking it's just as simple as that you're not following through on the action no matter how many seminars you listen to no matter no matter if you're taking if you have the patch on or if you're taking gum or whatever you're talking to your therapist about it none of that matters if you're not actually stopping the smoke for a consistent period of time and following through with it what else what about let's say you're reading a book and you've been struggling with finishing the books that you've that you've been starting and there are some books that you want to read but you you're down on yourself now because it hasn't been coming through for you well my question is get real with yourself how many times during the day do you actually sit down and read and for how long how many hours do you sit down once a day and read for one hour and do that consistently are you doing it every single day have you done that for let's say two weeks or three weeks or four weeks if you haven't done that how can you expect to finish a book do you think that just because you're thinking about a book and your friends are talking about a book and you to them about it and you hear about it on TV and you've journaled about it and you visualize yourself reading a book and you've talked to a coach about reading a book that the book is going to get read without you actually having to read the damn thing well if you make a consistent habit of it for a couple of weeks you're going to find that that book gets read and if you don't it never will what else how about completing a project let's say you have some project that you're working on maybe at work maybe you work for yourself whatever might be maybe it's remodeling the house or maybe it's a building your website or maybe it's writing a book any of those if you haven't been doing that consistently for at least 30 days at least 30 days working on that project every day for 30 days maybe you take the weekends off and you've been working at it a substantial number of hours every day like at least two maybe three maybe four maybe five hours every day for 30 days what can you expect what an unfinished project so if you're frustrated that your projects aren't being completed maybe it's because you're not planning them correctly maybe maybe it's because you don't have enough information about how to how to start that business or complete that website maybe but most likely the reason that you're failing is simply because you're not sitting down and putting in the time on a on a consistent basis what else how about integrating self-help advice this is a huge one then a really huge block for me maybe you go into the store you buy a self-help book maybe you've listened to some CDs and some seminars and you got some excellent information from that maybe there's a little gold nugget that somebody told you and now you when you're reading it you feel like yeah this this will really improve my life if I apply it and then a few weeks pass and you do this again and again and again over the years you read something a few weeks pass you kind of play around with it and then you never really integrate it into yourself you never feel like it's a part of you and then years later it's just like as though you haven't even read those books you got very little from them you know just about them but you haven't really made it a part of who you are well in that case it's pretty simple ask yourself are you actually following through and integrating the advice are you reading the book multiple times are you actually going and doing the exercises that the book promotes let's say we're talking about law of attraction this is kind of a popular one and I've pulled with this one myself let's say you read something about Law of Attraction and a lot of traction sounds great when you read about it right you're thinking positively thinking constructively you're not thinking about the stuff you don't want you're think about the stuff that you do want and when you read that in the moment you're like yeah this is a really awesome concept this will really improve my life in so many areas this can improve my relationships it's going to prove my business this can improve my health everything and I'm gonna feel better about myself so you know what I'm gonna go do this law of attraction thing then one is up happening is just they're so excited about it you talk to your friends about it you read you read the book you listen to the seminars you spend money on it and then for a few days you go out you actually apply a bit of the law of attraction and you actually start thinking you you start to shift your mind and you start exerting some willpower and some conscious control over your thoughts and you start thinking about all the positive constructive thoughts stuff that you want so I think about the stuff you do want rather than stuff that you don't want and for a few days you notice that you're feeling good you're feeling like there's something to this Law of Attraction stuff but then you get knocked off track and you get disenchanted with the whole thing and it's like a lot of Attraction yeah it sounds great on paper but it doesn't really work well why does it really not work let me ask you have you followed up with consistent action on this or have you just done some mental masturbation about it very very big difference and your mind is going to trick you into thinking that you have taken action when you have it the way to test yourself is well with all of Attraction have you actually applied law of attraction for let's say two to four weeks in your life consistently like I mean for four weeks you don't have any thoughts about the stuff you don't like in your life or the stuff that you don't want you are only thinking about the stuff that you want four weeks that's freaking hard to do let me tell you I've try this this is very challenging so unless you really struggle with this and gone through that process you're going to know if you went through it or not and if you didn't go through it if you just point around for a day or two and maybe read a book and then talk with your friends around it and then forgot about it well what can you really expect from that kind of action that kind of inconsistent action then what you've gotten which is again the status quo what you've got so if you're going to take inconsistent action then I can predict your results your results are going to be exactly what you've gotten so far in your life so if you're happy with that by all means do what you have been doing and if you're not happy with it then you need to start taking action and that actually needs to be serious that action needs to be consistent above everything else so this is of course why there's this common common notion out there that self-help doesn't work and by no means am i saying am I here to to tout the benefits of self-help with it with rosy rosy colored glasses on I mean I've been on this side of the fence for years and I'm still there I've still struggled with this a lot like I might no means is law of attraction something that I've integrated in my in my habits in my habitual way of being and that is something that I still need to work on but what I'm what I'm my point about the self-help is that there's this common notion under the self-help doesn't work and I think that's total BS it does work you just need to apply yourself consistently I think the trick is that a lot of the self-help industry preys upon the fact that people will are eager to jump on something but then it's very hard for them to follow through and the self-help industry I think where it becomes unethical is when it when it really plays into that like if someone is selling you some seminar tapes and or some or some books and they're offering you a quick quick fix solution they're saying that this is going to it's going to be a band-aid it's really easy and all this and that it can be done quickly and effortlessly and give you massive results well I think that if you've done enough self-help that you realize that it takes a lot of discipline to do it well you have to be methodical about you have to be kind of slow you have to be deliberate and you don't want to be buying into the hype of it even though a lot of those products actually off that offer are presented with that kind of hype a marketing a lot of them are actually really good like Tony Robbins and stuff on some level it's like super super gimmicky marketing but on the other hand it's really solid stuff like you can actually go through his material and apply it it's gonna lead some amazing results the problem is that 99% of people don't do that they just buy the book they flip through it they read a couple things because of what they heard about Tony Robbins or because of what they saw on TV about it or because of the promises that were made on the front cover of the book or the program and they're excited about it but then they don't have the sustainability to actually carry it through with consistent action and this is also why for example motivational speakers are sometimes disparaged because I've had this experience myself to is you go to a motivational speech and you get riled up the guy cites you and you're ready to get back to work and kick ass or you're ready to improve your relationships you get fit or whatever that might be and then the next week all that stuff fades off and nothing in your life has changed and after that happens to you a couple times you naturally just tend to get disillusioned too jaded of course because you don't see the results from it you keep going to the motivational speeches they just get you riled up hyped up and then nothing happens well what can you really expect from motivational speech if you don't follow up with consistent consistent action so think about that think about that if you're frustrated by these things if you're frustrated by where you are in life and you're kind of struggling and not getting the results that you want maybe you go up then you go down you're you're in this yo-yo then think about how consistent your action is in fact I want to propose a new rule in this new rule states that you have no you have no right to complain about lack of results and you have no right to be frustrated about lack of results unless you have a proven track record of consistent action and the best way I found of doing this is actually getting a piece of paper making just like a grid on it making a grid on a piece of paper putting putting the waste days of the week on it Sunday through Monday Tuesday Wednesday and all the way to Friday Saturday make a grid like a calendar pretty much and start checking it off every time you do this thing that you need to do so if it's about losing weight check off put an X through that that day in the grid where you actually went to the gym and then the next day put another X and if you miss it don't put anything or just write missed and all of a sudden you do that for a month and you're gonna see what you have really been taking action on and what you thought you were taking action on so while you might think that that whole month you've been doing good on your on your fitness and following through what you might see is you might see this Swiss cheese looking grid where you have a few days to the gym a few days off few days to the gym a few days off and there you are now the gym is a pretty pretty obvious case where this can be used with the gym is so noticeable when you don't take action that you can have a good sense of when when you're not following through there but there are more subtle things for which this is really powerful for example with following through on something like integrating law of attraction go through every day you do law of attraction put an X through that through that day and every day that you forget about it or you do a half-assed don't put an X through it and then after a few weeks take a look at it and see do I have a string a consistent string of X's do I have consistent action in other words and if I don't well that's the reason that you're not getting your result so this can be really effective I do it with Jim I do this with with anything that I really want to to integrate into my life and any kind of change that I want to make it that I'm really serious about is you got to track the consistency of your action now why is this important why it's consistency important well this kind of brings me back to classic Aristotle quote which says that you are what you repeatedly do and excellence is is ultimately just to have it it's not a one-time thing you don't just do a thing once and all of a sudden you own it and it's yours and that that is now really part of who you are who you are is ultimately simply the collection of everything that you do every second of the day that's who you are there's no whoo there's no magical ethereal whoo there it's just what you're doing and if you want to have the identity and you want to be the person that's fit and that's healthy and that's going to the gym there's no other way to do that than to do that as frequently as possible you're doing it every day then you're someone who goes to the gym and quite simply if you stop doing it then you're not no matter how much you've done that in the past so if you've gone to the gym for years years in the past and today you decide to stop and not go for some reason you're the kind of person that doesn't go to the gym and as soon as you start going you'll immediately become the kind of person that's going to the gym so we don't need to do a lot of mental masturbation around it either doing it or you're not makes it really simple and black and white this is why you're not getting the results that you want trust me on this there's a tendency to really deceive yourself which is why it's helpful to use this kind of chart or some sort of objective metric that will tell you if you're actually falling through it otherwise you'll tend to give yourself the benefit out and you're like yeah you know I did a good workout like yesterday when in fact you half-assed it all right yeah a pretty clean yesterday but I also ate a quart of ice cream like that kind of stuff it just kind of creeps in there and you're not disciplined enough to to really enforce it so that's it that's my little spiel about why you're not getting the results you're you think you should be getting take a look at your life take a look at all the areas where you're struggling you're not happy and analyze how much consistent action you've taken I think you'll find that if you're struggling you'll notice that the action has been very inconsistent and the answer and the solution to all that is to to start taking consistent massive action and holding yourself accountable for it you