'Action Rules!' in the Getting Goals Game. It is the number one most important step to achieving your greatness.

Having second thoughts? Trouble getting started? Stalled on a plateau? Spinning your wheels trying to get going again?

Just get Started. Goal Setting and Planning is necessary, but 'Action Rules' when it comes to getting what you want. Like Nike says, 'Just Do It!'

Taking action, any action is the important step. As long as you are moving, you can use the momentum to take more action. The saying that you can't steer a parked car is right on. You must get your vehicle moving before you can steer it.

You can even change vehicles to get to where you want to go, but you must start movement in the beginning. You can even change the direction, (your destination), but getting started is all important.

No action is too small to start with. In fact the smaller the better, because it is sometimes easier to believe in doing little things, then you can move up incrementally to larger steps when you gain momentum and confidence.

Remember the things you get will not make you happy, it is the challenge and the accomplishment of the things that create happiness. Too many people achieve to be happy, rather than happily achieve. The joy is in the journey, not the journey's end.

Start moving towards your dream.

Get off that couch, turn off that TV, stop daydreaming about what you would like to be or do, and start with some action that will take you in the direction that you want to go.

Maybe you have been able to fulfill most of what you want to do. Is there still something in your life that you have got to do but are feeling stuck, and just haven't been able to get it' Well if you still want to try, then, this is the place to get unstuck!

'Don't know where to go or what to do?' Decide for now that you do know, pick that thing that keeps coming into your mind, but you brush it away when your self talk keeps telling you; 'I couldn't possibly do that.'

Do it! You can change your mind later, if need be. Just get rolling! Get started! You can do it! Be courageous! You will find that in starting anything worthwhile, you will feel some reluctance to believe that you can do it. You will sometimes feel the force of inertia.

Most of us have felt this. Just remember that many people who have achieved greatness, felt that same emotion at times.

They just refused to believe that they couldn't do it, and went ahead on faith that it would work out. Move forward.

The reason for doing something is far more important in motivating you than the thing itself, so pump up the urgency by focusing on your outcome and how it will feel when you achieve it, instead of whether you can or cannot do it.

Because you can at least get it started! Take the first step into the rest of your life. Isn't it awesome? The journey is where the 'juice' is.

So, get started now. Just begin! Remember 'ACTION RULES!'

Al Smith, Copyright 2005