“Act from, not towards”–Kat Loterzo
When you think about what it is you really want for your writing life (and your life, in general), you probably think about what you want to move towards. You want to be a bestselling novelist. You want to finish writing and publish your book. You dream of seeing your novel turned into a movie.
But where you’re making a huge mistake is in what you’re focusing on. You don’t want to focus toward, you want to focus from. Let me explain.
When you have a goal you’re trying to reach, you’re often thinking about what you need to do to move closer to it. What steps or actions you need to take.
But doing that will keep you on the chase, constantly striving but never actually arriving.
And the reason is because you’re taking action TOWARD the goal, rather than FROM the goal.
When you take action from a place of already having what you want (even if you don’t yet have it), you send a powerful message to the Universe: I believe that what I want is mine. From this place, it’s impossible for what you want to not come to life.
Yes, impossible. And I never say things like that because nothing is impossible.
But this is.
Because acting as if is the key to bringing your dreams to life.
When you act from a place of already having what you want, you will start to see it manifest in your reality, and faster than you can imagine at this point.
An Example
I’m all about examples to illustrate a point, so here’s an example of the difference between acting from having already achieved a goal versus acting toward a goal. The goal? Being a bestselling novelist.
When you’re acting toward that goal, here are some of the actions you’d likely take:
- Write a novel
- Publish the novel
- Figure out how to market the novel
- Try to sell as many copies as possible
But when you’re acting from already having achieved that goal, here are some of the actions you’d likely take:
- Write and publish a novel you’re so proud of you can’t wait to shout from the rooftops to everyone about it
- Get started on your next book because you’re too excited to wait
- Send emails to your email list several times a week, sharing information about your novel, your process, where you get your ideas from, what you’re working on now, etc., and getting people as excited as you are
- Show up every single day and take actions to spread the word and sell more books
- Give up all excuses
See the difference?
One version is taking actions that feel generic and uninspired. The other is coming from a place of knowing that you’ve already achieved your goal, so every action you do take feels inspiring and intuitive.
Alright, so maybe you’re not seeing much of a difference. Maybe we need another example that’s more specific.
Let’s say your goal is to get 5,000 people on your email list.
When you’re acting toward that goal, you might:
- Send an email out once a week (you’ll wait to send emails more often when you actually have 5,000 people reading them, right?)
- Mention to your friends and family that you have an email list
- Find ways to grow your email list
When you’re acting from already having 5,000 people on your list, you would:
- Send several emails out every single week, no exceptions
- Pretend that every email you write is being read by 5,000 people (even if right now it’s not)
- Never, ever miss an email because you know people are waiting to hear from you
- Write every single email like it’s being sent out to 5,000 people
- Create tons of freebies for your website that get people subscribed to your email list
- Write several guest posts for blogs with more traffic than you have, so you can get their readers on your list
See the difference?
The first version is taking action toward the goal, and the second is acting as if the goal is already done and you already have 5,000 people on your list.
The whole point here is energy. When you show up with the energy of “I have to work hard to reach my goal,” you’ll feel uninspired and make excuses for why you’re not consistently taking action. But when you show up with the energy of “I have already achieved this goal,” it feels totally different. It feels inspiring and motivating and you’ll be more consistent with your actions.
When it comes down to it, it’s all about the energy you put into what you do. So stop taking actions toward your writing goal, and instead take actions from already having reached it. See what happens.
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How can you start acting FROM already having your writing goal?
Great post – it’s all about the energy and being excited about your goals. That energy becomes infectious!
Absolutely! Everything in life is always about the energy you put into it. And when you’re putting your energy into believing you have already achieved your goal, you’ll feel much more motivated and inspired to take action and do the work, not to mention you’ll be much more intuitively focused and will take the actions that actually get you the results you want.