Consistent action versus massive action
Do you get paralysed or energised by the idea of massive action?
I have recently made a discovery about myself that is small but important. I am NOT one for massive action. I have attended a number of Anthony Robbins Seminars and always been seduced by the concept of "massive action". The thing is, and I’m sure he didn’t mean it this way, I made my action so MASSIVE it overwhelmed me!
I would get all fired up in the seminar and come away with truly awesome intentions but no real route map to make them reality. The result was that the soaring high was often followed by a crashing low as I failed to conquer the world in a single bound after the seminar! It was not sustainable. Now this is not Robbins’ fault – after all “the meaning of your communication is the response you get”. It worked for him and I’m sure it worked for many others – we all have dreams that are currently bigger than our capacity to deliver – its just that my response was to be paralysed rather than energised!
In my mind I made up that I needed to devote my whole being in the pursuit of a particular goal sacrificing health, family, friends etc. until I got what I wanted.
When it didn’t happen for me I felt like a failure but what I realised was that we can choose to do that AND life will go on with or without us and, most importantly to me, I did not WANT to sacrifice all those things - this is both sensible and healthy. In fact – and of course Robbins knows this – it is vital that while we take action it is in the CONTEXT of our whole life; those chores that have to be done, those things that give us joy or pleasure, the time to recharge so we can be there for the long haul...
So I rediscovered the concept of consistent action. It’s been there all along of course – lurking in the shadows – and what woke me up to it was some reading I have recently been doing about Network marketing (by the way if you want a fast track to personal growth and developing leadership skills – I recommend getting involved with a network marketing business - more on that another time). In his book “Dare to Dream, Work to Win”, Dr. Tom Barrett tells the story of a team of people who invested a huge amount of time and energy in bidding for and winning a massive contract by taking small, consistent steps toward their goal. When the CEO was asked what they would do to celebrate – take the day off, throw a big party – his answer was surprising - “we’ll have a glass of champagne and then get back to work”. No fuss, no drama – just the culmination of a series of small, consistent steps to achieve the desired result.
What finally brought it home to me though was a “success formula” – The Clouseian Formula from “Learning the Business One Story at a Time” by Michael Clouse. Now I’ve been fascinated by the holy grail of success formulas for a long time, I’ve talked about them, even proposed a few of my own. They are hard to express simply and very few if any stand up to intense scrutiny. The Clouseian Formula appealed to me in its common sense simplicity. The formula is:
S=(d+g+a)i2
Success=(burning desire+written goals+consistent action) x self-improvement squared
Squared because, Clouse writes, “the books you read, CD’s you hear and the classes you take create a powerful synergistic effect over time”.
The effect of this on me was not particularly profound, I had no epiphany – it just made sense and with that a number of things fell into place for me. It is semantics but words are powerful and where the word massive overwhelmed me, the story of the team who took small consistent steps and this formula with the word "consistent" in its make-up helped shift my perspective and inspired me to get back on track and take my own small consistent steps toward my (written!) goals.
So, what is YOUR formula for success and what are the words that inspire, motivate and energise you? Find them and shake off the paralysis...
Last Updated ( Thursday, 17 May 2007 )