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I was going through my feed subscriptions and was reading this article from Copyblogger.  It’s a typically good article on online marketing called The 3 Secrets to Massive Online Marketing Success from Copyblogger by Sonia Simone. I can hear you saying, “OKay, so what does an article about online marketing have to do with the subject of this blog?”

Innocuously buried in her paragraphs about the fact we must take action on the good online marketing advice we read in order for said advice to aid us in achieving success, the following quote gleamed before my eyes like moonlight on the ocean.  I’ve lined-through the part that doesn’t pertain.

“Most customers for “business opportunity” products value the dream more than they do the result.  They want to get out of the cubicle, out of their crummy apartment, out of credit card debt. They might even want it desperately. But they don’t take action.”

What I like about this quote is that she could be talking about any dream and any advice - not just that of online marketing.  We’ve all heard the snarky comments about the effectiveness of self-help books and the people who read them.  I disagree with the bulk of those snarky comments and not just because I’m a person who reads and writes self-help books.  I don’t think there’s anything wrong with most people who read self-help books and I outlined in a previous article why the majority of people are not able to enact the positive changes inspired by self help books.  Mindfulness is usually the missing ingredient.  A lack of mindfulness is not a personal flaw or shortcoming, but simply a missing ingredient.  It’s within our power to add it into the mix of our endeavor.

There are books that tell us how to be mindful, but it remains the hardest thing to do because the noise in our heads is so loud and our days so full that we operate on auto-pilot most of the time.  We have our own in-flight movie playing 24/7 and because it’s all re-runs of old programming, we don’t even monitor what’s in there anymore.  Add self-talk to the mix and the din is so loud we spend our evenings watching television or playing video games so we can get out of our own heads and avoid all the stuff that’s rolling around in there.

Part of this is not your fault.  It is to the benefit of those that truly run this world for you to believe there is nothing you can do about getting what you want.  The social conditioning has taught us for generations that one can’t do the impossible and no one wins when fighting city hall (or the law or whatever bureaucracy one feels inclined to fight).  There is a reason they don’t teach intention and mindfulness in 3rd grade classes all across America.  If you felt effectual, you’d be out in the world doing things instead of sitting home at night being guided by the all-knowing blue-light of the television.

But now that you’re awake to it - now that you know - you cannot allow inaction to rule your days and nights.  Inertia kills more than dreams.  Inaction is most often a passive decision, but our lives bear the fruit of all decisions - whether made actively or passively.  Now that your eyes are open, it is incumbent upon you to take action - to move a little bit in the direction of your dreams every day.  Small steps add up.

Was it Frank Sinatra that famously said… Do be do be do… ? See, there are more do’s than be’s.  The doing is the preparing of the way.  Just as you must get prepare the way for dinner and payment when you order a pizza, you must also prepare the way for your other goals in life.  Yes, even in Law of Attraction.  Yes, we must align ourselves with our desires rather than the lack of them, but we must also prepare the way.

If you’re doing to download software, you must have adequate space on your hard drive.  You must know where you’ll save it.  Even a free download requires that we prepare the way.  The rest of life is no different.

Prepare the way, my darlings.  Prepare the way.