Start Now and Just Do It!

Jack Canfield's Success Principle #63

We have only two days left in our lessons from Jack Canfield's book, The Success Principles. Beginning January 31, we will begin a new series on forgiveness.

Don't let your fears hold you back.
So many survivors of abuse and trauma let their fears hold them back, and they never even try to achieve their dreams. Oliver Wendell Holmes, former U.S. Supreme Court justice, wrote:

Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often, it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.

If we allow the fear that our abusers instilled in us or memories of traumatic events to hold us back, we may die without ever getting the chance to bless the world with our God-given gifts.

At this point, I have four books that are nearly complete. For a number of years, I have been editing them so that they will be ready for publication. The truth is, I've been over-working them, because I'm afraid to send them out there. I hate the rejection letters, and it's safer to just keep working on them than to admit that I'm afraid.

The problem with this habit is that I'm preventing my readers from receiving the blessings that God wants them to have through my writing. I've learned so much about thriving after life kicks us in the teeth; and by sitting on my work, I'm preventing someone else from achieving their dreams.

Satan uses fear to keep us from sharing the love of Christ with others. What fears are holding you back?

Take the first step.
An ancient Chinese proverb says,

A journey of 1,000 miles must begin with one step.

I didn't learn how to write overnight. It began with taking the first step of choosing a creative writing class in high school. To date, I have published hundreds of articles and several books. My success began with that first step.

Anyone can succeed at life, but they must take the first step. What are you waiting for?

Fail forward.
Sometimes, we need to take a class or attend a workshop to learn some new skills. But in reality, all of life is a classroom, where we are constantly learning how to do things better. Some of the most important things we need to know can't be learned in a classroom or perfected at seminars. We have to get out there and just try. When we fail, we can ask for feedback, go back, and try again.

Believe it or not, our abuse or trauma has probably taught us more than we have ever learned in school. We know how to comfort someone who is suffering, because we have experienced that same comfort through God's love when we were hurting. My favorite Bible verse comes from 2 Corinthians 1:3-5:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

Are you waiting to learn something new before you can achieve your dreams? Is it possible that you already have the skills to become successful? Are you willing to fail, get feedback, and try again?

Keep trying.
The apostle Paul wrote about the need for perseverance in our faith walk, and I believe this passage is an excellent one for those of us who are afraid to fail at life. He wrote,

Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with peseverance the race marked out for us. (Hebrews 12:1b)

God has marked out a race for each one of us by giving us a purpose. It's up to us to start running along that path. On the way, we'll bless others, and when we arrive at the end of our lives, we will reach a lovely new beginning.

What is keeping you from achieving God's plan for your life? If you know what it is, why aren't you running the race?

Unforeseen opportunities grow out of your forward motion.
Buckminster Fuller, a scientist and philosopher, wrote about something he calls precessional effects. They are the outcomes of our forward motion as we strive to serve humanity.

To better understand this concept, he explains that a honeybee's primary purpose in life is to gather nectar. As he flies from flower to flower, he is unwittingly involved in a much bigger plan: he is cross-pollinating all of the rooted botanicals that he touches.

As we move forward toward our goals, we create these same types of precessional effects. I never dreamed when I began writing that I would eventually become the editor of a pharmaceutical journal or the ghost-writer of an evangelst's biography. These effects simply occurred, because I saw myself as a writer and kept moving ahead.

Are you creating precessional effects? Or are you sitting still, paralyzed by fears that are preventing you from blessing others?

Today's Challenge
Many people have no clue about how to achieve their dreams. We have learned from one of the best success coaches in the world how to get from where we are today to where we want to be tomorrow. The key to overcoming our abusive or traumatic past is to put what we have learned about our life's purpose into action.

Start today by going back through my blog posts and working through each principle one at a time, in the order that they were presented. Of all the principles we've learned, I believe one of the most important is to create a goals book. It's exciting to review our goals and action plans daily and to see that we are actually making progress toward our dreams.

You can succeed, but you've got to get started. And you must keep on until you've reached your goals. Imagine the joy you will feel when you arrive at the end of your life, and Jesus says, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Now get out there and just do it!

Jack Canfield, America's #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul© and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you're ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com

Chunk It Down

Jack Canfield's Success Principle #8

Breaking our big goals down into smaller, achievable tasks is something that Jack calls chunking it down. We certainly need this, after the overwhelming process of writing down those 101 goals from #7!

(1) Take the action steps to chunk it down.
Jack gives us three pieces of advice for chunking down our goals into smaller steps. They include:

-Consult successful people who have already done what you want to do and ask what steps they took.
-Read a book or manual that outlines the process.
-Start from the end and look backward. Think of the last thing you would need to do, then the step before that, and so on.

(2) Use mind mapping to break down your goals into achievable steps.
A mind map is a diagram that illustrates how we can get from an idea to the measurable outcome we're looking for. You really need to look at page 64 of Success Principles to fully understand it.

Basically, you start by drawing a circle on a paper and writing your goal inside. For me, this would read as, Publish Among the Ashes, the novel that I finished earlier this year.

Next, we draw lines from the center circle to smaller circles around the page. Each circle breaks down the big project into smaller tasks. For me, this would include Editing, Proposal, Query Letters, Contacts, Contract, Publicity.

The final step involves drawing spokes that project out from each of the smaller circles. Each spoke represents a step in the process. For my project, my Editing spoke would include Improve Pacing, Insert Comparisons, Eliminate Unnessary Characters, Delete Common Adjectives, Strengthen Verbs, Check Spelling.

(3) Make a daily to-do list.
From the results of the mind mapping exercise, the next step involves making a daily to-do list. Each item must include a completion date, otherwise we just let time slip by, and the project never gets finished. Do whatever it takes to stay on schedule.

(4) Do first things first.
We put things off, because we perceive that they're doing to be unpleasant or difficult. If we have a list of five things to do, we usually put off the hardest thing for last. Inevitably, it doesn't get done.

Brian Tracy wrote a book titled, Eat That Frog! I love his method for helping us to visualize how to quit procrastinating. He asks us to think of our most ardous task as a frog that we must eat. Yuk! If that hung over our heads all day, we'd be miserable, anticipating what was to come. But if we could just gulp down that slippery little critter, the rest of the day would be a breeze. After all, if we can swallow a frog, we can do anything!

(5) Plan your day the night before.
Scientists tell us that if we make a list of tasks to accomplish the night before, our minds will work out how we're going to do things while we're sleeping. If we plan our day's work before we sleep, we can start the day off running, chomping down that ugly frog before anyone else has rubbed the sleep from their eyes.

(6) Use the achievers focusing system.
You can find a helpful worksheet at www.thesuccessprinciples.com. It was designed by Les Heweitt of the Achievers Coaching Program and can be used to help you plan and hold yourself accountable as you accomplish the steps needed for 13 weeks of goals.

Today's Challenge
My frog is a pile of bookkeeping that I keep putting off. It's now on my list of things to do first thing tomorrow morning. I'd much rather get it off my desk than to continue listening to that ugly frog croaking from the corner of my desk. What's your frog? How are you going to eat him?