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Achieving goals: “Talk does not cook rice.” December 4, 2012

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Goal Setting and Realization.
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When working on our personal growth programs, there is a trap we can fall into of creating an imbalance of too much information input and not enough output in the form of action.

This can be true with both our major life goals and our shorter term goals, or the tasks we want and need to accomplish on our path to our larger goals.

The reason we engage ourselves in personal development, or self-improvement, is so we can make efforts towards moving forward with our lives in a positive direction.

The danger lies in becoming addicted to absorbing a constant stream of advice from personal development leaders, but not taking real and specific actions on the areas we want to improve in our overall life situation.

I am guilty of this myself, as it can be quite soothing, particularly when we are faced with fears and doubts, to take comfort in the positive messaging of recognized personal growth experts.

That is why I like the self-explanatory Chinese proverb at the beginning of this post:

“Talk does not cook rice.”

The role of action in overcoming fear and doubt November 27, 2012

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Fear and Anxiety.
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In our personal growth and development efforts we sometimes need to attack our ego’s tendency to fill our minds with fear and foreboding about starting a new project or embarking on a new path in our life journey.

In any new effort towards increasing our potential, our ego (the little voice in our heads) may have a tendency to throw up cautionary warnings about our planned or hoped-for course of action. It fact, it sometimes seems as if the ego considers its main job to be placing fears and doubts in the way of what we would like to do, particularly when it comes to taking steps to improve our lives.

Although we may try to block out this “voice of the ego”, it can be difficult to do so. When the ego cannot be ignored, one of the best approaches is to fight through the fears and doubts by taking action towards whatever we want to pursue or accomplish.

Here are a couple of quotations that I enjoy, and which may help you push through your fear by taking action.

The first is by the late writer Ray Bradbury discussing what you need to do in fearful situations:

“Stand at the top of the cliff; jump off; and then build your wings on the way down.”

The second quote I suggest you consider is by the late Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, a minister and influential writer on the concept of positive thinking.

“Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.”