Daily Action Plan

BREAKING OUT OF INFINITE LOOPS

An Infinite Loop is when you’re “stuck” or you find the same patterns or problems keep coming up in your life. But, for whatever reason, instead of reevaluating your actions and choosing a new path, you end up repeating the same mistakes that keep you spinning in circles. When you’re stuck in an Infinite Loop, you can’t make real progress or move up the spiral. To use my life as an example, in the years when I was unhappy at my job, unfulfilled, and knew I was on the ‘hamster wheel,’ I had fear about changing things up. I accepted my situation as ‘just the way it is,’ complained a lot, and secretly hoped that somehow everything would be different one day. But, I allowed my fears to keep me stuck and stay at a job that I knew wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I was trapped in an Infinite Loop and for years I didn’t do anything about it. Some other common examples that are usually signs we might be caught in an Infinite Loop: • Complaining about a situation but not doing everything you can to change it and instead just staying stuck. You allow your fears and doubts to influence the choices and decisions we make. • Overspending or not budgeting and having the same money problems month after month. • Procrastination and self-sabotage • Staying in an unhealthy relationship that you know deep down has no potential of growing and evolving.

INFINITE LOOP

DOWNWARD SPIRAL AND SELF-SABOTAGE

A Downward Spiral is when you’re making progress, but then you begin to make multiple poor decisions that work against you. Your progress comes to a halt and you begin to spin back down the spiral the wrong way. If you get caught in a Downward Spiral, it’s impossible to turn things around and start upspiraling again until you make some significant changes to the way you’re going about things. In other words, it is a serious cycle of self-sabotage. DOWNWARD SPIRAL

TURNING THINGS AROUND WHEN YOU UPSPIRAL

Here’s an extreme example. Jason was an entrepreneur I knew who worked diligently, made great decisions, and carefully worked up his spiral step-by-step to build his company. In several years he created an amazingly successful business that was thriving. He then had a yearlong marital affair, became consumed by the intensity of the situation—the constant covering up, the negativity it caused between him and his wife, and guilt. He wasn’t doing any inner work and was distracted from his work and business. He made one terrible decision after another and ended up downward spiraling and lost everything. His company went under and he became depressed and stuck at the bottom of his work and business spiral. However, it’s never too late to change your actions and behavior. In fact, that’s exactly what you want to do as quickly as possible when you realize you have veered off course. There’s a way out of every Infinite Loop and Downward Spiral.