Success Through Massive Action – How It REALLY Works

You often hear or read about “taking massive action” to change your life circumstances, jumpstart a business, get in shape, etc.

But what is Massive Action?  Is it real?  Does it work?  How does it look?  How do you take make giant strides without just burning yourself out or blowing up?  After all, how many people start of the New Year taking with bold plans to conquer conquer some challenge or goal (like getting in shape), take action for a few weeks, and then just fizzle because they can’t sustain the significant change they attempted to implement in one lightning stroke?

Massive Action is real and something you can implement in your life.  But there are a few tweaks you should implement to ensure you succeed. 

Massive Action Should Be:

Scaled Up

Frequent

Realistic

Structured for the long-term

Let’s take each of these concepts in order.

Scale Up

Once you have your clear goal, begin with baby steps.  Totally out of shape?  Take a walk that first day for 10 minutes.  Then, the next day, do the same.  When you are ready, try 15 minutes.  Again, intentionally start modestly.  Want to own millions of dollars in stocks, but don’t know where to start?  Buy that first $1000 of an index fund.  Then do the same next month.

The brilliance on scaling up is that A) most importantly you won’t burn out by going big and exhausting yourself, and B) you will immediately start getting feedback from the real world.  You get a first few blog posts out there and find out if anyone is interested.  If you think about it, scaling up is related to the Minimum Viable Product concept of the tech startup world.  You want to start getting feedback from reality as soon as possible — before you sink tons of time and effort towards your aim.

Frequent Action, Not Marathon Sessions

Similar to scaling up, your Massive Action should be frequent.  Don’t overdo it.  Scale it up, but pursue your goal often.  So take a walk every day.  Write a blog post, every day.  Search for the love of your life through some concrete action, every day.  (Yes, of course, we all need breaks occasionally, so–again–don’t go so aggressive that your burn out and abandon the effort.)

Frequency builds momentum.  Think of it like you are spinning a merry-go-round.  You push a little bit (and yes, that initial effort is the most difficult), push a little more, and push again.  Pretty soon, the merry-go-round is starting to get a momentum of its own.  You keep giving a little shove.  Eventually, you just tap it as it goes by, and the spinning goes round and round and round.

I’m not trying to make you dizzy here, but do you see the point?  Momentum in human affairs is real.  Did you get that?  I mean Momentum in Human Affairs isn’t just something in your mind.  Once you have momentum, it helps you.  Getting started each day is easier.  You know what you are doing.  You are building confidence.  The best way to get huge momentum going is through sensibly scaling up combined with frequent action.

Be Realistic

This one is simple.  Massive Action will fail if you aren’t realistic.  If you expect to find the love of your life one week after signing up for a dating site, you will become discouraged and fail.  If you plan to create a hugely successful business the first time you dip your toe into entrepreneurship, it’s possible–but not likely.  Which brings us to our final point.

Structure Your Activity For The Long-Term

When you start taking massive action, think in terms of years, not weeks or months.  You are going to be building a cathedral of human achievement, success, and joy, and you are going to build this over years, even decades.  Does that scare you?  Honestly, every successful person I know took years to build something amazing.  So think long-term.  Oh yeah.  It helps if you actually like what you are doing.  I don’t mean you like the end goal you are aiming for, but instead that you like what you are doing each day working towards your goals.

So that’s it.  Yes, go for Massive Action.  But this means less that you are Sisyphus pushing your rock up a lonely hill and more that you: scale up with micro-steps, focus on frequency rather than quantity, be realistic, and plan for the long term.

Good luck.  You can do this.  I know you can.