How to Force Yourself to Take Action (Even When You Don’t Feel Like It)

If you feel stuck, if you feel like you're in the same place you've been a month ago, six months ago, even a year ago, this episode is for you. Because most people don't fail because of lack of motivation. They fail because a lack of structure. Today I'm going to give you my Fast Action framework. These are three practical ways to force yourself to take action even when you don't feel like it. These steps are dead simple and they're pretty powerful if you apply them. And you'll start to feel momentum immediately. Let's get into it. Let's start with the first strategy in this framework, which is accountability overload. This is the fastest way to get unstuck, and that's why I start with this one. Accountability overload means you're stacking accountability so high that it becomes harder not to act than to act. Let me say that again. You're going to make it so hard for you not to act that you have no other choice but to act. Most people try to hold themselves accountable in isolation, and I'm telling you right now, if you're new to the game and you haven't made progress, this is not going to work. You are asking for trouble, you're asking for failure. You need several forms of accountability. So what does work? Well, we do things for other people that we won't do for ourselves. Our pride starts to kick in, our integrity starts to kick in. Worrying about our reputation starts to kick in. So you need to use that to your advantage. When you're getting started and you have no audience, you have no product, you have no revenue. You need to use everything to your advantage. You need to use anything that you have at your disposal. And accountability is one of those things. So here's how to create accountability overload. The first part is you have to have an accountability partner, somebody that you can check in with every single week. This could be your spouse, but you need somebody that will put your feet to the fire and say, hey, you said you're going to do this this week. Did you get that done? By the way, you can buy yourself an accountability partner by just joining any kind of coaching program or online course. Usually there's a community aspect to it where you can be held accountable through your peers or with your peers. But you got to ask for it. You got to say, hey, I want somebody to hold me accountable who wants to be my accountability partner. The next level or the the next stacking of accountability is telling your friends and family exactly what you're working on. Make it public to the people around you that, hey, you are building a business, you are creating a podcast, you're starting a channel on YouTube and the reason why you want to voice this is so that you feel like you need to follow through. So the next time you see them, the next time you hang out with them, they don't kind of, you know, ask you the question, how's it going? And you say, I haven't started yet. That is going to be in the back of your mind and you're going to kind of spring into action on along with your buddy that's gonna be holding you accountable. The next level accountability is share what you're committed to doing this week, not someday. What does this mean? Well, it means that with your accountability partner, with your friends and family, be specific, be like, hey, this week I'm going to launch my channel with my first video and put the COVID image on top of the channel, whatever it is. The point here is, is that you need to say, this is what I'm gonna get done this week. That way it's specific and you know exactly what you have to do, but also that they can hold you accountable to that. Not, hey, you haven't had a million subscribers yet in a week. No, the goal for this week is xyz. The next level accountability is telling your audience what you're building and what you're launching. So if you have any audience, like on social media or on an email list, let your audience know. Let your subscribers know, hey, I'm launching a new product in April. This is what the product is. By just putting it out there, they know that they're expecting that from you. Okay? And you're going to feel accountable to the people that you said that to, right? You're going to feel like, hey, my integrity is at stake here. If I don't follow through. Now, if you want to really notch up the accountability, build in public, meaning share the progress you're making. When you make this announcement, say, hey, you know, it's January now, in April, I'm going to launch this product. You're, you know, each week you can put an update in your email or in on social media, hey, I've made this progress. I've launched the site, I've made this progress with the product. This is what I'm working on next. Now working on the pricing tiers, whatever it might be. The point here is that by sharing more, you're holding yourself even more accountable to your audience. Now, this isn't private anymore. You created social pressure and that is not a weakness. It's leverage for you to make sure that you take action. If you struggle with follow through with actually taking the steps you need to actually make something happen. You don't rely on willpower. You just can't. You have to design in an environment, so action becomes the easiest option. It's actually easier for you just to do the work than to feel really bashful and feel embarrassed in front of your audience, in front of your peers, in front of your friends and family. That is more painful than actually doing the work. See what we're doing here? We're actually making it more painful for you not to work and take action than to work and to make it happen. The second part of the Fast Action framework is deadline everything. If something doesn't have a deadline, it's not a task, it's a wish. Every single item on your to do list should have a date and time as a deadline. You need to get it done by a certain time. No deadline means no. No urgency. No urgency means no movement. Deadlines force decisions. Deadlines create momentum. Deadlines turn ideas into reality. It's just that simple. Let me make this easy for you. If it's not on your calendar, it's not real. Use deadlines as an accountability partner. It works. Put tasks on your calendar, like literally, like I have on my calendar. Record podcasts, episode, and it's this time right now. I have a deadline for it. I know exactly I need to get this done by this time. You want to set reminders for yourself. That's what the calendar. Adding it to your calendar really helps because you get reminders, set alarms. Even better. Combine this with your accountability overload, right? Like put a deadline, an exact deadline. I'm launching my product on April 30th. You might announce on social media. I'm starting my physical training this Monday. Tune in, I'm going to give you my update on Monday. I'm going to be sending my newsletter every Friday at 9am now that the deadline isn't just internal, it's public. You now have the pressure as a friend and not the enemy, right? The pressure is going to help you move and have a goal and have a finite goal. What I love about this is that, you know, the deadline is not only this is when I have to get it done, it's also the time I get to celebrate. This is when I get to put something out in the world or finish something, accomplish something and say, hey, I did that. It's a joyous moment. It's something that is actually really fun to work towards. Again, pressure isn't the enemy. Pressure actually helps you in a lot of ways. Unstructured time with zero deadlines and zero pressure, that is the enemy that really is going to allow you to just extend things for as long as possible, and you're just not going to make the progress that you want. The third part of the fast action framework is micro actions. I absolutely love this one. This is a game changer, especially if you don't have the habit of accomplishing things and finishing things on a regular basis. This is where real momentum is built. Big goals, in all honesty, are overwhelming for most people. A lot of big goals sound like this. I want to get fit. I want to start a business. I want to write a book. I want to launch a newsletter. I want to start a YouTube channel. They're so big and it's so overwhelming, many people just freeze. The solution to this, though, is micro actions. Micro actions are so small, they remove any resistance, any laziness possible. Take fitness, for example. Let's say it's day one of you getting in the best shape of your life. That's a big goal. But if you've never worked out consistently and you've never actually got in the best shape of your life before, then, then you don't know what that even looks like. Okay, so maybe your first day, your micro action is just to put on your gym clothes, put on your gym shoes and walk into the gym. That's it. If you turn around and walk home after that, you still win. Okay? Because you accomplished the micro goal. I know this sounds almost a little bit ridiculous, but trust me, it actually works because you're getting yourself in the habit of doing what you said you're going to do. You get what I'm saying? You said you're going to put on your clothes and you're going to put on your gym shoes and walk into the gym and you did it. So you accomplish it. Now you have a bit of momentum. The second day you might say, okay, I'm going to get to the gym. And when I get to the gym, I'm going to do 20 minutes of walking on the treadmill. The day after that, I might turn that into 20 minutes of walking on a treadmill and three minutes of running. The next day it's 30 minutes. The next day I might add some stretching. The next day I might do one set of weights. Momentum starts to compound the same thing in business. By the way, you want to start a newsletter. Day one, open a Google Doc. And write one paragraph. That's it. That's your micro goal. You've done it. Completed. Wonderful. Day two, write the second paragraph. Day three, edit. Day four, paste it into your email tool. Right. Day five, hit send. Small actions make a huge difference. Let's talk about why this works. All three of these strategies in the Fast Action Framework have one thing in common. They remove amateur thinking. Oh, boy. I love this. Amateurs. They wait until they feel ready, which obviously never happens. Okay, professionals, they act fast. And that's what I'm encouraging you to do, to go pro, to become a professional. And that's exactly what I'm going to unpack for you in an upcoming episode on a book called Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield. Incredible authority. That book is all about the invisible resistance that keeps us from achieving our goals and keeping us stuck and how we can cross that line from being a dabbler to being fully committed and being a professional. So make sure you subscribe to the show so you don't miss that episode. It ties perfectly into what I'm talking about with you today. Structure over motivation. So if you're not where you want to be yet, don't beat yourself up. Just do this. Do the three parts of the Fast Action framework. Very simple. Overload. Accountability. Do all the forms of accountability I mentioned to deadline every single thing for you and put it in the calendar. Make sure you have a specific date and time when things will be completed. And number three, break every goal into micro actions. What are the small actions I have to take to get to where I want to go? And don't be afraid to really break them up into tiny, tiny actions. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. In my 20 years of entrepreneurship and personal growth, this is what I learned. I'm going to sum it up right here. Action creates clarity. When you take action, you start to get more and more clear about what you need to do and what your future looks like. It doesn't just happen by just sitting down and doing nothing or thinking about it. It happens when you take steps forward. Action creates a lot of confidence in yourself because you say you're gonna do something and then you do it. And you do that so many times over and over and over. You have so much confidence in yourself that you can get anything done. And then action creates momentum, which is huge. Momentum is one of the most underrated things in life in general because momentum creates a sense of accomplishment and it makes you enjoy what you're doing. Personally, happiness is very close to progress for me. When I feel like I'm progressing, I feel like I'm in the zone. I feel like I'm enjoying my if this episode has helped you take action, then I recommend you check out another episode of the podcast that I published on book publishing. What are your options when it comes to publishing a book? What's right for you? I get into it deeply, do a massive research, and share it with you. That episode is going to save you years of confusion and mistakes. So go ahead and enjoy that next and I'll see you in that episode and I'll see you on the next one as well. Take care.