Beliefs: No matter what you want to do, you first start with some beliefs. For example, you may want to make some real estate investments in a new neighborhood, and you believe that residential real estates would do very well in this neighborhood. This belief would be the very beginning of your success in real estate investment.
Potential: Once you form a belief, you will go out and verify your belief. If your belief is verified, you see the opportunity/potential for your success.
Actions: Once a potential is identified, you take actions to realize the potential.
Results: Your actions generate results. If the result is good, it will strengthen your original beliefs and make the whole success cycle goes smoother the next time around. If the result is bad, it will help you tweak your original beliefs and makes the success cycle better the next time around.
Now, all these sound like simple concepts that any grown-ups would understand. Success breeds success, and failure paves the way for success. This is conventional wisdom. However, there is a catch in this success cycle, and the catch lies between potential and action. Between potential and action, there is a barrier to jump over. This is the time that the little voice in your head (the subconscious) starts to give negative comments, like "I will do it tomorrow", "this is too risky", "I am perfectly good as is" starts kicking in. For most people, this is where their success cycle stops flowing. Once the success cycle is stopped, so does the success.
As you can see, there is nothing stopping you from doing something except your own thoughts. You are indeed the biggest enemy to your success. Therefore, the most important question is, how can we overcome this psychological barrier?
Since the enemy is yourself, there is really no single formula as something that works for a person might not work for another. However, I can share what I did and I have found useful to overcome the psychological barrier:
- As stated in the previous article, you need to first bring the subconscious out in order for the conscious to have a chance to defeat it. Therefore, the first step is to acknowledge the little voice and don't give in to it.
- Once you recognized the little voice, ask yourself, "why am I having this kind of thoughts in my head?"
- After step 2, you may have found that your reasons for holding you back are very obscure. Reinforce your beliefs and ask yourself, "what is the worst case scenario if I failed?"
This may not be a very simple step and may require some analysis. List out all the actions and possible outcomes so you can see exactly what's lying down the road. Very often, you will find that the worst case scenario is really nothing you should worry much about. - By now, you should have weaken your little voice in your head and are ready to take some actions. At this stage, you can give yourself a little psychological push. I personally love to tell myself a few quotes of wisdom. The following are a few of my favorites:
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results."
"If you want to be average, do what the average does."
"Words without actions are cheap."
- You should now be psychologically prepared. Take the action!
Starting from today, stop giving into the little voice in your head and start DOING. Both success and failure breed success. The worse thing to a bad action is no action. If you are happy with what you are doing today, just continue staying at where you are. However, I warn you that the world is moving, and in the information age things are moving quicker than ever before. This will be a decade full of financial problems (and hence opportunities). I would sincerely urge you to brush up your financial intelligence by taking actions in order for you to take advantage of this opportunity of a life time.
In the third (and last) of the series, I will go over some of the common phenomenons that contribute to people's lack of actions. Stay tuned!
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