Life Doesn't Change Unless You Act - Brian Tracy

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Daegwallyeong Sanyang Round Hill

Info

Book - Life Doesn’t Change Unless You Act

Author - Brian Tracy

Translator - Jung Ji-hyun

Review

When you read a self-help book, you meet someone living out their values through action.

(In this book’s case, “Life doesn’t change unless you act.”)

The more you resonate with that story, the more it solidifies your own thoughts and actions,

and reading well-crafted sentences makes what you actually want clearer to yourself.

That’s why I find myself reaching for self-help books from time to time.

I’ve kept a few passages from this one.

My motto is: never worry about things you can’t control.
Many of the world’s negative problems are simply beyond our power to change.
But we can always change ourselves. When you grow, the level of society as a whole rises with you.

Successful people think like this:
I’m capable of accomplishing anything. There’s only one question: how? Where can I learn the method? That’s all I need to know. Whether it’s reading a book, asking someone for advice, or searching online, I will get it done. I definitely can.
They never even entertain the thought that they can’t. They take on challenges easily and steadily achieve small goals one at a time.
People who fear failure, on the other hand, think like this:
I can’t do it. I really want to, but I probably can’t pull it off. There are too many reasons I’d fail.

Real motivation doesn’t come from outside. It’s the sense of moving forward that drives us.
What matters is that, for whatever reason, something has come along that you want to achieve. Now that you’re motivated, you won’t linger in bed every morning. You’ll wake up early, start your day, and keep moving right through the evening. That full sense of progressing toward a goal won’t let you sit still any longer.

Real motivation comes when a vivid sense of self-efficacy builds up and you can clearly picture yourself gradually improving.
In other words, real motivation is the feeling of moving forward.

Your “ideal self” is the image of who you want to become - picture the perfect role model you envision for yourself in every respect: health, wealth, status, influence, lifestyle, and so on. Successful people have a very clear and specific ideal self, while unsuccessful people’s ideal self stays vague. Those who dream vaguely of success can’t clearly describe where they want to stand in the future. If it’s hard to put into words, here’s a useful trick: imagine you could wave a magic wand and make your life perfect three years from now. You don’t need to think about it in terms of where you are today at all. What would that life look like, and how would it differ from today? Write it down specifically. How much do you want to earn? What kind of house do you want to live in? What relationships do you want? What state do you want your health and fitness to be in? How much money would be in your bank account? The clearer the picture of what surrounds you becomes, the more motivation follows automatically.

I recommend seeking out and reading quality books that offer positive inspiration.

Waking up every morning and planning out the day ahead is one of the most basic habits of successful people.
Ordinary people hate boxing themselves into a plan and think that simply living each day diligently is doing their best. But diligence without direction slides all too easily into laziness. Don’t vaguely recall what you have to do today - decide specifically when you’ll do what. Do work that requires creativity in the morning while your mind is clear, and save business meetings for the afternoon, for example.

Don’t overthink your actions with excessive timidity or fussiness. All of life is an experiment. The more experiments you run, the better you get.

Teaching something to someone else often deepens your own understanding of that field, because what you teach becomes part of who you are. If you keep feeling the urge to talk about a subject and spread the word about it, it’s likely because you want to dig into it more deeply. To teach someone, you have to study the subject thoroughly and view it from multiple angles - whereas someone who has already mastered a subject loses the desire to learn about it, and with it, the desire to teach it.

“Self-image”: how I see myself
“Ideal self”: who I want to become
When the “self-image” and the “ideal self” diverge, “positive affirmation” becomes the bridge connecting the two.

Positive affirmation
Step 1 (Idealize): Picture your life as perfect in every respect. Set aside all the obstacles standing in your way right now, and picture purely what your heart desires.
Step 2 (Visualize): Turn what you want into a specific, vivid image. It should be realistic, clear, and something you can keep bringing to mind vividly and consistently.
Step 3 (Verbalize): Infuse the image with emotion and put it into precise words. An affirmation becomes more powerful once it’s written down.