212. Turning Intentions into Actions (How to Take Action)

We can research what to do  and even how to do it, but if we don't take action all that we learn, all the knowledge, any intentions, goals, visions and resolutions don't change a thing. So what does it take to not procrastinate but to take action? 

I share with you what I've done lately and how I made sure my intentions don't just turn into pipe dreams and what process I use to go from intention to action. 

From Chaos to Peace Consulting Inc - https://connygraf.com

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Chapters

• 0:58 Moving From Intentions to Action
• 17:42 Chaos to Peace Jumpstart Call

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:58

Welcome to the Chaos to Peace with Connie podcast. I am Connie Graf, your host. I am here to explore with you how a few minutes a day can keep the chaos away, and with chaos I'm talking about the physical, digital, social, financial, mental, emotional and spiritual clutter that can accumulate in our life and business and our finances. Clutter is so much more than you think. I created this podcast to inspire you to do something about it. It's my deep desire to help you understand that you, too, can create and maintain an organized and supportive environment spending only a few minutes a day. Thanks for being here and enjoy the episode. Well, hello, my friend, welcome to the podcast, and thank you so much for allowing me back into your ears.

Speaker 1: 1:55

In this episode, I want to talk about how intentions are not actions and how we need to check in with our goals, intentions and resolutions, update them if necessary and see where we have to get ourselves back on track, meaning actually taking actions. So to that, I have a funny anecdote this episode should have been released on the 5th of February, but it wasn't, isn't that funny? My intention was to publish it on February 5th and nothing happened. I didn't take action until I found it in my Evernote files and now, on April 15, I'm releasing it. Crazy and a good example how intentions are really not actions. Anyways, back to the episode. So I usually do this review of my intentions and goals on New Moon and not on any other old day. And why on New Moon you can hear in many episodes. The last time I talked about it was in episode 201. So if you need a refresher why I chose New Moon, then listen to that episode after this one. So anyways, by regularly reviewing our goals, we make sure we're not just forgetting them, but also that we're not giving up on them because we fell off the wagon. So we review, readjust and recommit, and we might have to let go of certain goals because we realize that they are not feasible at this time. But that's not what this episode is about.

Speaker 1: 3:50

Today I want to talk about how we can go from intentions to actions, because we have to remember just setting intentions is really not enough. Intentions are great, but we do need to take action, consistently preferably, and if we do that, then we will reach our goal. One tiny step at a time, a few minutes a day, keeps the chaos away. You hear me say a lot, but even reviewing intention is not enough. Just reviewing, readjusting, tweaking, etc. Can become a trap on its own, a trap to stay in action. This has certainly happened to me. I love tweaking, reorganizing, organizing, as you can imagine, and that is sometimes really like procrastination in action instead of taking action. I can tweak, reword, dream and envision and do so much of all this mental stuff without actually really taking action. So how do we get to take action?

Speaker 1: 4:53

So there is a book that I was reading back in February and it's called the Art of Taking Action by Greg Krech, and it's not really a new book, it's apparently from 2014,. But I just came across it and I thought, oh, that sounds interesting, I want to read it. And he, greg Krech, the author, says something interesting. He says taking action is one of the most important skills we can master if we wish to maintain good mental health. The habit of action is the most important thing we must acquire. Life's success or failure depends on this one thing. So what should we do? We should get so that it is second nature to put our thoughts into action. So what he's saying is we need to learn to do what we say we're going to do, without having excuses, and even if we don't feel like it when the time comes to do it, or when we said we're going to do it, we still have to do it. He says we should get so that it's second nature to put our thoughts into action. So we need to do what we intended and planned to do, because this is self-integrity. And he goes even so far to say that taking action is helping with mental health. I can see why, because we're often beating ourselves up afterwards if we're not taking action. I talked about this vicious cycle last week in last week's episode, right, so I can totally see why he says taking action is helping with mental health. Procrastination really creates frustration, and the stress of frustration is what is taxing on our mental health. So okay, so far, so good.

Speaker 1: 6:44

But the question is, of course, still how do we move from intention to action? How can we make sure we are not just dreaming up goals, setting intentions, but then don't take any actions at all? So here are some tips that I came up with and that I'm using and experimenting right now with to move myself from intention to action. So step one is we have to make our intentions specific. In episode 201, I shared with you my reflection process, usually on New Moon, like I said, and I review and I ask myself how exactly I will make sure that I have more of what I want and less of what I don't want. So we have to remind ourselves to be very specific when we do this.

Speaker 1: 7:37

For example, for me, with the intention, less distraction, more focus. Being very specific means, for example, I will not watch a video or webinar or listen to a podcast while at the same time also scrolling social media or checking emails, and I'm really not good at this. Yet this is so hard for me and I have to, over and over, remind myself and catch myself to not doing this. Or another example is the one for less consumption and more creativity, and action is I will not learn ahead, but learn in time and then take action before I learn something new. This is even harder. This is really what I do. Or how I procrastinate instead of taking action. I just love learning, so I learn more and more and more. It's kind of like procrastinating by learning, and you would think learning is a good thing, but not if you're not taking action. So I really have to constantly ask myself is this learning in time, or is it learning ahead of time? So this is what I mean with getting really, really specific.

Speaker 1: 8:57

You need to figure out what are you doing instead of taking action and then become very specific with what you want to do instead of what you're doing so far or what you're not doing so far. So then we move to the next step, which is where, when and how do I take action? So we want to plan it, to take the action right. So this step is crucial because we have to move away from the goals and step into action, and that's basically the core of this episode. And maybe we need to remember that goals are in the future and action is in the present. So what we need to do is move from the future back into the present.

Speaker 1: 9:48

Nick Milo, from Linking your Thinking, says goals are nearly always outcomes, and outcomes, in most cases, are uncontrollable. When these outcomes become the main focus, we implicitly define success based on accomplishing something outside of our control. The alternative is to focus on the effort we make. Our effort is almost always controllable. So in this step, we want to ask ourselves when and how will I take action, what effort am I going to make? And then when we actually do make the effort, when we do take action, then this is our measure for success. This is when we're patting ourselves on the back. This is when we were in self-integrity.

Speaker 1: 10:43

But the risk here is and especially for me too, I don't know whether you're the same is that we're trying to take on too much at once. We can't do it all, and we can't overwhelm ourselves with big changes. That's a sure way to overwhelm frustration and no change. So we have to start small, and this is where it becomes pretty clear how I always say and I'm all about a few minutes a day keeps the chaos away. As you have heard me say, doing something tiny, consistently every day creates momentum and it will get us to our goal.

Speaker 1: 11:23

So we need to ask ourselves what is the smallest, easiest step from intention to action? What action can I take today, effortlessly and every day from now on also effortlessly? That moves me in the right direction. I truly believe we need to look for the path of least resistance to make progress, and it's important that the habits we ask ourselves to follow are steps that we can commit to for the rest of our life. I talked about that concept of doing it for the rest of our life.

Speaker 1: 12:01

In the last episode as well. It's important because this helps to make sure that we're not putting something on our plate that we can only maintain for a very short period of time, and something that only works if all the stars are aligned, if it's rainbows and daisies and everything in our life is just perfect. So again, what is the smallest, easiest step I can take? What action can I take every day, effortlessly, that moves me in the right direction, towards my goal? And every day when I do this effortless action, it is success. So now we're ready for step three, also a very important step that a lot of people forget have a plan for obstacles.

Speaker 1: 12:57

You want to think about and make a plan for how you will react when you encounter an obstacle, when it's not easy to do what you intend to do, when life happens, when it gets stressful and you're sliding back into how you behaved before. Or the risk is here that you're sliding back into how you behaved before, which is not taking action, which is, in my case, learning more, not being focused, being distracted, doing too many things at once. This is where you need to have a plan on how to adhere to your habits from clarity, as Michael Singer calls it, because if you don't have a plan, you might get upset and quit and that means you let yourself down and you're not reaching your goals, and then you're beating yourself up and then we're back in this really mental clutter cycle that I know very well. So brainstorm ways you can be kind but firm with yourself, overcome the obstacles and stay on track. You want to plan this ahead of time, because in the moment when life happens and when you're stressed, you don't have the brain capacity to come up with an idea, and that's how most resolutions, goals or intentions get abandoned, because life happens to us. We dreamed it up, like in our mind, how life is going to be, and then life happens differently. So for me, this step is again making sure that everything is so tiny. The step is so tiny that they can do it, even if life is stressful. So maybe you come up with something. And also, what we have to come up with is to be kind but firm with ourselves, is to be kind but firm with ourselves. We can be firm and say I can do something for five minutes a day, or 15 minutes a day, even if life is stressful. There is almost always a little tiny window of five to 15 minutes where you can do something for yourself and moving towards your goals, intentions and resolutions is really another act of self-love. And then I want to give you a little bonus step. We also want to have a plan for when it works. When we start succeeding and feeling that we are making good progress. We want to ask ourselves and plan for what we have to be aware of and what we need to do to maintain this good result, so that we're not slipping back but keep improving.

Speaker 1: 15:43

This step is also often forgotten and it's where we lose again what we just achieved, because we're not mindful that we have to keep up with everything and can't just feel we arrived and can relax now. This is what often happens with people when they declutter. They make a huge effort and declutter their whole house, and then they sit back and relax and are happy and all the clutter comes back in. So this also reminds me of a concept I learned from Alan Weiss called watertight doors. I have to make a separate episode about that concept one day, because it's a bit too much to elaborate on here, but what it basically means is whatever progress you made, you don't allow yourself to slip back, you make watertight doors behind you.

Speaker 1: 16:35

Here are the four things to do to move from intention to action that I'm actually right now working on and that I want to inspire you to work on yourself too. Here is a little summary. So step one is making your intentions very, very specific. Then ask yourself and plan for when, where and how you will take action. Step three have a plan for when obstacles show up. And bonus tip also have a plan for when it works. Yeah and so, slowly and gently, with action and effort, in a few minutes a day, we will make our way to where we want to go and where we want to be somewhere in the future by taking action in the present. So in my eyes, this process applies to when you want to clear your clutter in your home office and finances, as well as for any other goal or change you are wanting to make. You can always use these three steps plus the bonus step.

Speaker 1: 17:42

Okay, my friend, that's it for today. Thanks for listening all the way to the end. Have a beautiful week. Talk to you next time. Take good care and spread peace. You can bring your chaos to me. Use the link in the show notes and sign up for a complimentary 30-minute chaos to peace jumpstart call where we will address your most pressing pain point around clutter and chaos and how to solve it in a few minutes a day and, if you're ready, we can also discuss options for moving forward together and how I can help you out with on your journey from chaos to peace. You'll find the links to sign up in the show notes.