"DO IT NOW" : SUCCESS FREQUENCY

Image: Maison Martin Margiela by Tyrone Lebon

As we crystallize what we want to create in this new year —and how we want to FEEL doing it - perhaps the most important step of all, and the one many of us find to be the most challenging, is to START.

Sometimes, taking the first step is harder than the task itself. Procrastination takes over in its various shapes and forms, holding us back from setting forth on our visions. Our ego might even throw every excuse in the book to put off doing the thing that we know will help us get what we want.

In these moments, we like to think of this Seth Godin quote: “you don’t need more time, you just need to decide.” Even one of the 13 Laws of Success as taught by Napoleon Hill, DECISION, is what he called the “Master of Procrastination” for when we decide to do something and then DO IT, the vision is set forth into a powerful momentum.

All it requires is for us take the first step. The scarier it is, the more powerful the experience on the other side most likely will be. And just remember, we can have it all…but we just can’t have it all at once. Slowly, day by day, we build, create, generate and organize and suddenly we find ourselves on the other side of everything we've wanted.

This is where creating a vision with solid action steps, timelines, and accountability, like we do every month in Benshen Course, is a powerful way to remove the self-stalling and excuses and distractions that deplete our energy. Instead, we can simply begin. Imagine, even if for a moment, what would happen if you just did the thing?

In this newsletter, we’ll return to one of our favorite passages from Julia Seton’s The Science of Getting Rich. It reminds us that we don’t need permission or perfection to begin, and we all should make sure our unique genius doesn't go unexpressed.

Image: Encyclopedia of X-rays and gamma rays, 1963

THE WATCHWORD OF SUCCESS: DO IT NOW

from The Science of Success by Julia Seton, 1914

‘Do it now’ is the watchword of success. Of course it is common sense to give ourselves a legitimate amount of time to get ready for anything. The bigger our endeavor, the more time and thought it demands, and it is well said that ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread.’ It is also true, though, that without this quality in this human soul which causes the fools to rush in, many fools would forever remain at the fool’s level of enfoldment. The urge that sends the fool on is the urge that deifies and glorifies our human endeavor. While the fool follows it in uncontrolled, undirected enthusiasm, wise people guide it and cherish it as their most precious possession, training themselves to allow it to urge them on and through almost impossible accomplishments.

‘Going to do it’ never gets anyone anywhere, and those who rise powerfully to the top of their own mountain of success are those who first survey the path to this mountain pass and then, taking the bit of the bridle of their own lives in their teeth, race to success. It is then that the world, seeing them rush on in what appears to be madness, stops and asks, ‘What is this?’ And with attention comes interest, and through interest comes praise or ridicule, and through these comes cooperation and success is assured. Finding ourselves, knowing what we want to do, giving ourselves, knowing what we want to do, giving ourselves a legitimate time for perfecting our ability to do then doing it—this is the law of success.

Do it now! We may have only one-tenth of one percent perfection when we start anything, but practice makes perfect, and out of the very crudest material will come a gem, polished by use into a resplendent brightness. It is better to do and fail and profit by the wisdom born of this failure, than to sit down in unexpressed genius and atrophy from disuse. ‘The past is spent, the future is thy God’s, today is thine, hold fast the precious treasure.’

Image: Doug Wheeler, David Zwirner

EXERCISE:

PUSHING PAST RESISTANCE | THE LIST

The act of putting off the small things can inadvertently leak the energy we have to build the thing we want…and we might not even realize it. To combat this, take some time to make a scary list, one that calls us out on our bullshit. We call this a procrastination list.

This is a practice that blows us away again and again, seeing clearly on paper all the items we could easily square away if we just did them rather than putting them off until some distant “tomorrow,” allowing unnecessary anxiety to build inside instead.

However mundane or important these things may be, get them all off your chest. If you've been putting something off in any capacity, jot it down. Give yourself a reasonable deadline to complete these items. And give yourself an easy one to do first, and relish in the satisfaction of crossing it off. Putting off cleaning the house? Paying a bill that's been sitting around for weeks? Making that dentist appointment it's definitely time for? Finally creating that business plan? Signing up for that gym membership? Organizing your closet?

As you move through your list - you'll notice some of these may have been things that have been put off for a long time, waiting until just the right moment. Just remember a very helpful mantra: done is better than perfect.

Our need for perfection is another at-the-ready roadblock that hinders us from what we need to do, because there's always the chance we could wait and make it better. But as Seton says, “The world is full of those who are 'going to do it' and so it is full of failures.” The failure comes from the NOT doing it, rather than doing it “wrong”. There is no right or wrong - just learning curves that we grow from along the way. Creating this practice for ourselves starts to build the self-trust muscle and fosters self-sovereignty so we can know, deep down, that we are truly capable of doing anything.