HOW TO TAKE ACTION BY: PRIYA ALI Over the years I have seen two types of situations with clients in regards to action. First is the client who struggles or is even paralyzed when it comes to taking action. The second is the client who is taking all kinds of action but getting nowhere. Good news is, there is a simple process for both of these clients to follow that will lead them to successful, sustainable action. The first step is to clearly state the desired result you are looking to achieve. Let’s use a cleaning/ decluttering example, where you would like to have more ease and flow in your kitchen. Ultimately, your desire is to be able to cook with ease, feel relaxed when eating and to be able to keep the kitchen clean. The clients who struggle with action may get derailed right here because they don’t know where to start. The client who struggles by taking all kinds of action may get derailed here because they decided to dump everything out of every cupboard to start. Either way both become feeling overwhelmed. Ideally, we want to break down the room (or task/situation) down into small sections. Using our kitchen example, we could break down the kitchen into each cupboard, each section of drawers, the fridge and the counter space. Make a list of each section to be completed. From there, we can begin from two different starting points
Which cupboards can we do quickly by completing them in a short amount of time, or which cupboards will make a huge impact by being completed? If at this point there is still a feeling of overwhelm, you can then use the same questions to break the cupboard down into sections. Once we have created the plan of action, the next thing we decide is how to manage our time. The clients who struggle with action can get overwhelmed because it looks like it will take a lot of time or they don’t know how much time it will take. The clients who struggle by taking all kinds of action may not know where to spend their time. By deciding on a set amount of time to spend, we can then govern how much we can tackle at any one time. Be sure to stick to your set time. If you want to add more time on, set another time frame and repeat. Each time you complete a section or subsection, check it off of your list.h This helps you to acknowledge what you have accomplished and can assist you to feel inspired to continue. Create goals and time frames that are easily accomplished and then add more on if so desired. This helps you to stay on track and keep the momentum going. This can be used to approach any goal, such as debt reduction, starting to exercise or a project at work. The key is to break things down, simplify and take the first step to roll things into action.
