“The ancestor of every action is a thought.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Throughout the day a multitude of thoughts arrive in your head: ideas, things you’d like to do, people with whom you’d like to be, something you’d like to tell someone, something you should buy, something or someone that you would like to know…
Some are positive and show you what you should be doing to become what you want to be. These ones help to accelerate events. Others, however, will inject you some kind of fear so that you don’t do what you should. These ones slow down events.
Some are deep and others, simple and mundane.
The way you pay attention to all these thoughts determines your present and your future. To achieve what you want, you have to focus on them.
As David Allen says, “merely having thoughts is one thing; consciously feeding them is quite another.” If you have a good idea and you don’t pay enough attention to it, it will dilute in your mind and disappear. It is a flower that hasn’t grown. But if you do something, even writing it down on a place where you can review and reconsider it later, your neurological system begins to respond to that thought, generating new ideas and other thoughts around.
When you feed them with attention and interest, your thoughts are accommodated in your subconscious and, from there, they influence your actions. Also, they’ll begin to be shared with others, some of which will be in a position to help you (and, most likely, will like to).
So when it comes to activate your mind to get things done, you want all the help you can get. You must use every trick that pushes you to do what you have to do, and you must do it so your thoughts, neither get forgotten nor stay all the time in your head.
As you put something in front of your door to remember you need to take it the next day (I do that), you must put anything that requires your attention in front of the door of your consciousness, somewhere you know it will pop up in front of you from time to time. That place is your GTD personal productivity system, whose lists you will review each week (because the weekly review is actually a part of your habits, right?)
The way in what you active your mind regarding each of those thoughts can be very powerful. It isn’t enough to embrace the good thoughts and discard the bad ones. You must pay attention to your thoughts and intend to act on them. You need to be proactive and take the initiative.
You have the power to create things from your thinking, change your life and influence others’ live. Do not let it escape.
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