How To Accelerate Your Growth Through The Art Of Taking Immediate Action

Taking swift, brave and decisive action in response to inspiration, bold advice and those sudden light-bulb idea moments, is critical to breaking-through self-esteem blocks, and shifting limiting beliefs.

Especially for people transitioning into, or in the early stages of running their own business.

Outside of the structure and safety of an organisation, the new sense of exposure and accompanying vulnerability abruptly raises the stakes on every decision, action and commitment that needs to be made. Depending on where your relationship is with yourself, your beliefs around mistakes and failures and your degree of resilience, these stakes can be both terrifying, and paralysing.

And yet, they are the aspect of being a business owner that provides the most opportunity for your growth and transformation.

Hesitation Triggers Shut-Down

Hesitating on taking acting on our ideas and inspiration, creates the cracks through which our old programming and limiting 'stuff' can rather brutally jump in, and pin us back.

The longer we wait, the more opportunity we gift our subconscious to step in and shut it down.

That's its job after-all. To keep us safe. Rooted in the familiar.

But if we allow it, the mind will literally shut-down ideas and actions that could have smashed us through our limiting thresholds, and move us to where we want to be.

And to be clear; this is different than forgetting.

It's mental mutiny.

A literal shut down. And it's scarily efficient.

"Hang on, I knew that..."

Think about it, how many times have you had a massive, water-spluttering insight, or moment of inspiration. Something epic. Big. But scary. Scary enough that you didn't take immediate action on ot. Only for something to then crop up a few weeks later and leave you, palm-to-face, lamenting; "What / why / how? I knew that. Why didn't I...? Damn, I completely forgot!"

You didn’t forget.

You hesitated.

Which allowed your 'stuff' to be activated, and your subconscious to shut it down. 

Personal Example

My first ever solo-venture (circa 2006) was a music branding agency, called Soundtrack. It brought together my passion for brands, sound and music. Initially we did well, working with Pepsi, Moet, several hotels and a global telco.

But ultimately, it ran aground.

2008 economic crisis aside, the main reason Soundtrack failed was because of my inability to take the level of massive action that the business needed to grow to the next level.

Why?

I was being chronically held back by (my then) negative programming; "Yeaaaah, I’m not really good enough to be doing this. I don’t deserve the level of success and freedom this could create, eventually I’m just gonna get rejected."

All Motion No Action

I was epic at being in 'motion' - planning, thinking, creating, building my web site, making snazzy presentations and work shops, brainstorming, researching etc. - but when it came to the 'action' that all that deserved and needed to create results? Hesitation after hesitation. Shut down after shut down.

Even when the CEO of one of the biggest sound agencies in the US contacted me to discuss collaboration, it still wasn’t enough to break the pattern.

I dawdled, delayed and ruminated. He gave up.

Shut down.

Passion Isn't Enough

I had Soundtrack mapped out to the most minute of details.

I’d talk endlessly about it to friends and colleagues, and painted an amazing story. 

I was on fire. I loved it.

Waking up in the night with ideas, talking about it endlessly.

Working 18 hour days, 7 days a week.

But none of that mattered.

Passion is rendered useless if it's not met with equal volumes of courage and commitment. And those things come from another place.

Break The Pattern, Tame The Beast

The only way to break the pattern of this shut down, is to learn to take immediate, big, scary action whenever those moments of inspiration ad ideas strike. Or whenever someone you trust recommends meeting so and so, or doing this or that.

If it feels good / right / scary - then you have do it.

Straight away.

There is no 'when.'

Do it there and then.

There's strange and exhilarating alchemy that goes to work in the jet stream of big, bold and immediate action. And it's infectious.

The Freedom Of Zero Attachment

My own personal break-through came on the back of one of the best pieces advice I think I have ever been gifted. A piece of advice I live by to this day, and passionately encourage any of my clients dealing with action paralysis to adopt.

A classic strategy for encouraging hesitation, is being overly attached - emotionally - to the outcome of our actions. The deeper the attachment, the stronger the emotions and the more limiting the story in our heads can become.

Shut-down.

When we act however, with the conscious intention having zero attachment to the outcome, all that BS goes away.

To be clear, zero attachment is not the same thing as not caring. Quite the opposite. Unshackling passionate ideas and purposeful action from the conditions of an expected response, is an extraordinary demonstration of just how much we do care. About our own growth as well as the growth of our business.

4 Transformational Benefits Of Unconditional Action

To close, here's 4 powerful benefits of taking massive, immediate action:

1. It disrupts limiting beliefs, and every-time we do it, we delete another line of code in that negative programming.
2. It strengthens your relationship with yourself, your intuition and self-esteem.
3. It builds your self-confidence, and your belief in your business.
4. It ignites those idea, stacks those opportunties and builds phenomenal momentum.  

Do It, Today

So, what idea, big, scary inspired action or piece of advice are you sitting on right now?

Do it. Today.

Do with no attachment to the outcome.

No scanning the horizon for response, results or validation.

Just do it with the simple intention of letting you know that you're serious, and make a note of how that feels.

'That' feeling; that's the growth.

Remember, there is a strange alchemy that goes to work in the jet stream of big, bold and immediate action.

CB