Episode #25: Why You’re Not Taking Action
Circumstances are the things we can’t control, but often we get sidetracked with the idea that the circumstance causes us to not take action. But this is what it really is: there’s the thing that happened, then there’s what you think about that, and then there are your feelings about what happened. Out of all of these, your thoughts about what’s happened, what’s happening, or what is going to happen are the reasons you don’t take action.
I have a lot of good intentions. I set up my schedule, turn on my timer, and feel motivated to just get things done. But I still don’t get the things done that I put on my schedule. That’s when I need to peel back the second layer of why I’m breaking my promise to myself.
Let’s say you have an employee that you need to have a difficult conversation with, but you don’t want to. You think that your employee is never going to change, and you’re too discouraged to even begin the conversation with them. But because you don’t address this problem, it starts to build up in other areas in your life, and you end up blowing up at them over an unrelated issue.
We need to slow down and see what thoughts we’re thinking when we move away from our schedule. What we think determines how we feel, and that determines the actions we take. If we’re thinking a positive thought, then in turn our actions will be positive.
Your call to action is very simple this week: become aware about the things that you have on your calendar. Observe the way you’re thinking toward things. This will help you be aware so that you’ll be ready for the next step, which will allow you to dig deeper into what’s holding you back.
If you’re ready to start playing with how you can change your reactions, your thoughts, and your feelings, you can contact me on my website. We can set up a call and I can help you understand this strategy on a deeper level.
Hello and welcome to episode number 25 of the Strategy Corner where a goal is to get you to take action. I’m your host, Michelle Zink, the owner of Intentional Solutions Corp. On today’s episode, we are talking about why you’re not taking action. Last week we dove into why you break promises to yourself. And this episode dives deeper into why you’re not taking action. These two podcasts are relatable, they’re very similar. But this one dives a little bit deeper and gets a little bit more into why we actually don’t do something. Why we don’t take action. So, the diving deeper part is, is for you to start realizing when you have a circumstance. So, I gave examples of let’s say not going to the gym or you have a circumstance of a boss’s reaction to something you asked. Or you have a circumstance of your husband or wife getting upset because you didn’t make dinner.
Circumstances are things that you can’t control. These are things that have happened and they’re facts. So, a circumstance is just something that’s happened and then your thought about it is your thought, right? So, if the circumstances, you didn’t go to the gym yesterday at five o’clock, your thought is what you think about that. So, you didn’t go to the gym and you could possibly be thinking, I’m a loser. I can’t get to the gym. How can I ever lose weight if I can’t get to the gym? And when you start thinking that thought your feelings, so you start feeling something. So, you have a circumstance, you have a thought, and then you have a feeling. So, if your circumstances, you didn’t get to the gym yesterday at six o’clock or five o’clock and then your thought is, I’m a loser, how are you feeling? I mean, I’m feeling pretty deflated.
I’m feeling pretty down. I’m feeling pretty irritated at myself. And so, the thing is is that when we start having these thoughts and then we start feeling, this is truly why the action we take is something of nothing, right? If we have, the reason why we don’t take action is because of our thoughts and the feelings we have about a particular circumstance. So, for not going to the gym, you might have another thought of why should I even go, I’m not going to be able to lose weight or I’m not going to be able to get into shape. And then your feeling might be frustrated and then your action could be that you don’t even go to the gym. So, the whole thing that I’m trying to teach you in this episode is that the reason why we don’t take action, the reason why we break promises to ourselves is because of a thought we’re feeling about that particular situation.
So, when I was saying and giving an example about how I’ll set like 45 minutes to check my emails and then I don’t adhere to the 45 minutes and I let it go. My thought at the time is normally I just want to get this done. And so then I feel I just want to get this done. I feel motivated, right? Cause I just want to get it done and then my action is just moving forward and getting it done. And so, the reason why I actually move forward and I don’t listen to myself and listen to the promise that I made to myself to only have 45 minutes is totally the thought I was thinking. Now, with that circumstance being, I have 45 minutes from my emails. A new thought I could think is I could start thinking that I really want to only do 45 minutes because I know that’s what’s best for me.
Or I know that I only want to do 45 minutes because I want to play with setting a time limit and not breaking it and you know, adhering to the promises that I set for myself. Or it could be the thought that 45 minutes is just the right amount of time to check my emails. Then I feel motivated. But in this case, when I feel motivated, my action is to stop at 45 minutes. My action is to stay focused for 45 minutes. My action is to not do anything else but check emails for 45 minutes so I can actually get it done. So, what I’m trying to almost peel back the second layer on why we break promises to ourselves is that it all relates to a thought we’re having about a particular circumstance. So, let’s give an example. If you have employees that work for you, you might have a discussion with an employee that you need to get to.
Let’s call it a crucial conversation. You have a conversation that you know you need to have with your employee, your employees been coming in late and you have a set time for arrival at 8:00 AM. And you also know that this employee has been going through some things, but you really need to make sure that they come in at eight o’clock. So, your thought about this could be that’s holding you back from meeting with them. Could be that this employee is never going to change and then he might feel discouraged and your action is just letting it go and not saying anything. So, by doing that, by letting your employee just move forward coming in at 8:30 and you not expressing that you’re irritated or frustrated or get an agreement with them. What happens is is we allow this employee to not even know what our problems are with them or what our issues are.
And then that starts affecting our relationship with our employee. We don’t realize, but if we don’t act on these irritations, on these issues with employees, this starts building up and then in the end we could be the one who actually messes up. It has to apologize to the employee because of what we’re thinking. And we might blow up at them about an issue that had nothing to do with the real issue at hand. But it’s just everything’s been adding up. So, when you have circumstances where you have to talk to an employee about an issue, your thought can either be the employee’s not going to change or your thought could be this employee will understand my issue after we talk. Or your thought could be, I’m excited to get an agreement with them so that I don’t have to start or I don’t have to worry about them getting here on time.
Now, with even those two thoughts, it makes you feel more positive. You could have a feeling of not excitement, that would be a good one. But I don’t know if we’re really excited to talk to them. But you would feel motivated and you would feel focused because you’re focused on talking with them and getting an agreement and then your action is you actually meet with them. So, when we’re talking about keeping promises to ourselves and we’re talking about taking action, we need to slow down and see what thoughts we’re thinking at the time when we need to take action, because that is what is holding us back from not taking action. What we think helps us determine how we’re feeling. Or let me say that one more time. What we think determines how we feel and thus creates the action that we take. So, if our thought about a circumstance, and remember a circumstance is a fact, and I might be digging in a little bit too much for some of you, but you can listen to this again and I’ll be talking about it again in the future because this is really profound work.
It’s really enlightening when you start figuring this out again, that we’re in control of everything that we think and how we act and how we feel and then how we can actually utilize our thoughts to get us to take action. So, if we’re thinking a positive thought, our feeling will be more positive and our action will be positive. If we’re thinking a negative thought about something, we will have a negative feeling and a negative action. So, the key is to understand that you can just jump to a new thought whenever you want about a circumstance. So again, if we’re going back to the gym and we see on our calendar that we need to go to the gym at three o’clock today and of course, it’s two o’clock you’re busy, maybe had a client meeting or your daughter or son just got home from school and you need to get some work done and three o’clock is just snap, not sounding good.
So, your thought could be, I’m too busy to go. You could feel frustrated and your action could be not going or you could go ahead and your new thought could be, I’m committed to going the gym for myself or I’m choosing to go to the gym because I want to. And your feeling could be motivation, your feeling could be commitment and then your action is going to the gym. So, it’s not to say that you’re not going to think negative thoughts because you are. Everyone is and people say that it’s pretty much 50% of the time we think positive thoughts and 50% of the time we think negative thoughts. But we are always in control of what we want to think. So, the circumstances are things that are set in stone. Those are things that are facts. So, the fact is we had three o’clock written on our calendar to go to the gym, and our thoughts can either be a positive or negative, and then our feelings are all reflective about the thought.
And then the action comes from that thought and feeling. So, what I would like for you all to do this week, your call to action is very simple. I just want you to become aware and thing about the things that you have on your calendar. And when you get to those things to do, what are you thinking? That’s it. All we’re going to do this week is observe the way that we’re thinking towards things. And by doing that, we’ll be able to then dive deeper and see what we’re feeling and then how we’re taking action. And this is all just for you to learn how you can take action quicker. So, this is not something that you’re going to be able to implement right away with ease. It’s something that you have to practice. Initially it might sound a little crazy, right? And then as you dive into it and really start thinking about it and actually starting practicing it, you’ll really realize how you can utilize it to your advantage.
And it could be for everything. Now I gave examples of things on your calendar. It could be also that you come home for work and your husband asks, your wife asks, where’s dinner? Right? That’s the circumstance. And your thought could be what are they talking about dinner? They should be getting it or I’m not in charge of dinner. And then you could feel frustrated and then your action could be to lash out at them. Or you could come home and your husband or wife asks, where’s dinner? And you could just take a minute and you could see that thought in your head of negativity, how you want to just blow up at him and you can decide at that moment, I’m not going to think that thought. I’m going to choose a different thought. That’s more positive. And it could be one where you know, you kind of laugh and say, that’s a great question.
Where is dinner? And then you can feel more lighthearted and then your action is engagement and figuring out what, what’s for dinner. So, this call to action is one where we’re becoming more self aware and we’re looking at how we’re thinking about circumstances that come up during our week and then how we feel and how we act. And then also playing with the idea of how you can start changing and moving some of those circumstances or excuse me, some of those thoughts to be different. Now, if you want to learn more about this and if you want to dive a little bit deeper into how your circumstances create your thoughts and your feelings and you really want to practice this, but just really learn on a deeper level, all you have to do is go on my website and click the button where it says connect now or a free conversation or I forget.
Let’s connect something. Go on my website, click on that button, put your information in and we can set up a call. We can get on a call, we can talk for half an hour, and I can help you to understand this strategy at a deeper level so that you can start applying it in your life. So, it’s your turn to try this strategy and see how you like it. Please remember to go to iTunes, Stitcher, Google play, and subscribe to the Strategy Corner. You can also go to my website, Intentional Solutions Corp and sign up to get my weekly blog post, which also a link to my latest podcast. You can also go to my website and click on the link to have a conversation, and we could talk more in depth about this strategy of why you’re not taking action. Until next time, remember: through action and growth progression happens. Let’s take action together. Thank you and create an amazing week.
