You may be thinking this blog post is going to be about expressing your pain, emotions, suffering, etc. It is not. It’s about moving from thought to action to create agency. Let me explain.
How often do you find yourself having thoughts swirling around in your head? You start with one, and keep connecting other thoughts until it becomes so overwhelming that you either have a panic attack or abandon all thoughts and resort to scrolling through FB or watch TV mindlessly—or both. It happens to everyone! When we do this, we make everything convoluted, more complicated and ever expansive. All that mental energy and time (or really life) wasted. And we feel helpless because the problem or thought we started with became too big for us to solve and we leave it for another day. What is a way out of this that will allow you a sense of control and agency? Keep reading.
Express each thought singularly: I don’t mean express it to another person—we will discuss that later, but express each thought concisely by writing it down. Let’s say you are thinking about your career and you are still in school. Not sure what you want to do. Write down “what careers should I get into”. This helps you define your thoughts.
Expand and diverge meaningfully: Write down associative thoughts, or related ideas for each one. So, in case of a career, you would write down a few options, several types of jobs you may be interested in, for instance, how much money you want to earn, what kind of work conditions do you want to have (in groups, solitary, big place, small, etc), This helps you clarify your thinking.
Create a path for each: That is, under each of these write down “how to?” Or, if you know how to get into that particular career, write down the steps you need to take. Here, it takes research. If you don’t know, ask. This helps you take the first step into putting thought into action.
Prioritize: Decide on one or two, at the most, of these paths to follow up on. Second step to agency: This helps you master your thinking
Create ACTIOINABLEs: That is, list everything that you CAN do, or steps you can take, on that path. Does it involve taking special courses? Need specific internship? Need connections? The actionable could be researching how to do something, learning how to do it, or taking the steps needed to get there. This is the second step to moving from thoughts to action.
Set timelines: Establish a timeframe for accomplishments and literally schedule them. This helps you control your life.
Converse & COMMIT: Here’s where talking to someone becomes REALLY important. When you tell other people what you want to do with your timelines, you are actually making a commitment to do them. I would even go so far as find out what every person you talk to can do to help you on your path. This system allows for meaningful, focused and impactful conversations with friends and enlists their resources for your achievement. This helps with your mastery over your own destiny and your resources.
So, don’t stew your thoughts. Express them, plan them, act on them and commit to them. You have gone from thought to action in 7 steps. Sometimes, you need a coach to help you do this. If you need one, contact me. I am looking forward to your comments.