From Thinking to Action

Joan Baez, the American folk singer, said, "Action is the antidote to despair." Whatever ails you or wherever you are feeling unfulfilled in your life, action is the right antidote -- even if your action is sitting on a park bench and listening to what your soul has to say.

Action often is unperformed because a decision has not been made. Every day you make hundreds of decisions; some are easier to make than others. Your daily decision-making begins when you get out of bed in the morning and ends when you decide to go to sleep at night. Between those two decisions are hundreds of others that you make, often without even thinking about them.

Usually we do not take action because we think it will be more painful to take an action than to not take the action. You might have stayed home from a party because, even though you wanted to go and have fun, you thought no one would talk to you, you would have a lousy time, or you might see your ex-partner there with a new love. This situation reflects an inherent thinking pattern many of us have of projecting negative outcomes: always predicting that the outcome we see as being optimal will not occur.

The solution is action. Every time you project a negative outcome -- and you act anyway, and things go well -- you will be less likely to project a negative outcome the next time. You will begin to recognize more and more when you are projecting negative outcomes. What are the situations in your life where you feel uncertain, where you have not taken action? Have you been unable to break up with a partner because you project that being alone will be worse, or that you will not find someone better? Have you been unable to start an exercise program because you project you will not be able to keep it up? Identify the situations in your life where you have not been in action because you cannot see things going well. Then begin to take action to prove your self wrong.