Alex Shalman.comPractical Personal Development

This is a guest post by Alex Fayle of SomedaySyndrome.

In one of my favorite fantasy books, Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede, the main character Cimorene finds herself about to be married off to a Prince she can’t stand. Eventually she finds herself in a conversation with a talking frog who asks her what she is going to do about the situation.

Cimorene tells him about all the people she’s talked to and complained to. He replies with: “I didn’t ask you what you’d said about it. I asked what you’re going to do. Nine times out of ten, talking is a way of avoiding doing things.”

Guilty! I have such a vivid imagination, that if I start talking about my goals or dreams, I don’t actually need to complete them. In my mind, I reach the end of the journey, celebrate the success, collect the accolades and revel in the money I’ve raked in.

All without having to lift a finger.

I connect with the future on a highly emotional level and feel all the positive emotions associated with success. And I’m done. I don’t need to do actually go through the effort of getting there – that’s just too much work.

Visualizing Action, Not Outcome

A lot of self-development people say that you need to fully visualize your outcome if you want to reach it. Talking to others about it makes it real and makes you accountable. However in his excellent book 59 Seconds, Richard Wiseman looks at studies which prove that visualizing your future too well actually hinders the likelihood of you completing it.

Instead of visualizing the outcome, Wiseman reports, you’ll have more success with your goals if you visualize yourself taking action that leads you toward your goal.

Let’s look at an example. I’m currently working on the draft of a novel. To motivate myself say I try picturing the novel finished and on bookshelves in stores with my name at the top of the bestseller list.

Will that honestly motivate me? No, because there’s no imagery of the work it will take me to get there. In fact there’s a good chance the image will demotivate me and lead to working less instead of more.

Why? Because the gap between where I am (blank page) and where I want to be (bestselling novel) is too big. I can’t see how to get from here to there and so don’t even get started.

However, if I picture myself sitting with my laptop writing each day, celebrating the progress I make then I’m likely to follow through on the vision because it’s only a small step from here to there. I don’t need think about the end result, only the next step in the process.

Action Provides Its Own Rewards

Many people talk rather than act as a way to gain validation from others without actually making progress or changing their lives. These are the people who take endless personal development courses and read every personal development book and blog out there, talking to everyone and anyone about what they’re learning.

And it feels great. They know what their dreams are. They can talk until their jaw falls off about what they want to achieve someday and everyone around them pats them on the back and says “good for you!”

By talking so much, however, these people don’t act. They’re content with the preparation but never start the journey.

These people are addicted to validation and have found an easy way to get it. All their talk makes it seem to the outside world that they’re taking action, but in the end they have nothing to show for it.

When people take action to make internal changes there is often no immediate payoff, no pats on the back for the small steps we take. Lasting change takes a long time and is hard work. Talking is fast and easy.

If you’re like this at all, stop talking. Set yourself a goal – some small habit that you want to change – and take the first step towards achieving it. Give yourself a pat on the back for doing so then move onto the next step.

And this way you’ll learn that action provides its own rewards, its own validation because as you move towards your goal you will see your progress and feel validation coming from within.

At this point, once you are over the validation addiction, go find yourself a forum or group of some sort. Talk to the people in this forum or group about your actions and your progress as a sort of accountability tracking rather than for validation. When you use talking for accountability you lean on the support of others (and provide support to them in turn) to help you take action, and not to boost a failing ego.

Over on Someday Syndrome, I offer a free Accountability Clinic that mixes weekly email reminders with a forum for reporting in on goals, action and obstacles. For my writing goals, I also belong to Forward Motion Writers to keep myself accountable fiction-wise.

Remember, someday never becomes today no matter how much you talk about it. So, if you were Cimorene, what would your answer to the frog be? What action will you take to achieve your dreams?

Alex Fayle is a professional nagger – his most hated word is “someday” and has devoted his life to helping others get rid of it from their vocabularies. Through his site Someday Syndrome (http://www.somedaysyndrome.com), Alex works as a lifestyle designer to help people make big changes in their lives and stop the procrastination habit.

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