How to make your life an action movie

One of my favorite movies is “Terminator 2”. I’m not even quite sure why but I love it and will watch it whenever I can. It might be because of badass Sarah Connor. That is definitely part of it. She had a dream, a goal: save her son, John Connor from the Terminators so he could stay alive and save the world. Now, I’m guessing we don’t all have that level of pressure or dreams as big as that, and I’m not saying we should. But she sure made her life a very interesting action movie.

In reality, we can all live in a (slightly less intense) action movie if we want. It could even be an action movie that ends with you planning a picnic this weekend. All we really need for an action movie is action. But, where to start?

We all have a part of us that feels lost to some extent. Lost in that bored sense that we don’t know what to do with ourselves. Lost in that “Why am I in this job?” sense. And so on. I know I spent a lot of my life feeling lost. And when I was focused on feeling lost, I sure wasn’t able to take any action to get me out of that place. I wasn’t even able to know what I wanted. Maybe I was feeling lost because I was thinking “I don’t know any other way to be”. Before I could know where to go on my path, I had to find out where I was exactly. That meant I had to just stop sitting in this “feeling lost” place.

Figuring my way out of that place meant I had to figure out how I got there. This involved A LOT of questions, thought work, mindset work, and self-reflection.

How do I know I was lost? What happened to knock me off course/keep me from a course? What is keeping me feeling lost? Why am I keeping myself lost? Why am I choosing to believe I am lost? How would I know I was moving in the right direction? What would that feel like? What am I scared of ? Why? What would I do if you felt that? What DON’T I want? Why not? Is there anything about my “don’t wants” that is appealing? How can I phrase that as something you DO want? How do those wants feel?

This phase was so important in my growth. It felt like I was doing so much, at first. But, just answering these questions and sitting and doing self-reflection weren’t going to get me anywhere. Plus, watching a movie of someone sitting and writing in a journal the entire time would not make a great action movie. Learning, thinking, writing, are all actions but they are passive actions. All needed, but at some point we need to get off our asses and move.

Actions get us the results we want. Taking risks gets us the results we want. This is where massive action comes into play. Massive action is taking risks and putting ourselves out there in the world. But, thinking is always part of the cycle so I had to figure out where I wanted to go. I had to pick my destination before I tried to get there. I had to pick an actual plot for my action movie life. I had to make sure I really wanted to do that and that I really liked how thinking of having that felt. I had to make sure I would be able to handle failing (because I was going to fail. We all fail. It’s what makes the plot interesting) and that I would feel ALL of the feelings that I was going to feel.

Here’s where the action comes in. To get to my dream, I had to figure out why I didn’t already have it. And those are my obstacles. Those are what stand in my way of getting what I want. The great thing about obstacles is that they are actually strategies. Those are the times when I choose to stand up and speak out instead of sitting back because I have to feel the discomfort to move forward. For example, I wanted to write this blog post today. Why hadn’t I written it already? My obstacles were: I didn’t have my computer on or maybe I didn’t know what I wanted to write. From a strategic perspective: I turned my computer on and just started brainstorming ideas.

What is the next smallest step I can take towards moving towards my goal? And the next and the next? Any small step is progress and that is massive action. Now, it might not end up with me saving the world or having to deal with Terminators, but it can still be exciting and I can still love my action packed life.