from mind to reality

I have a lot of skeptics in my circle of friends.

People who don’t believe in journaling, habit tracking, to-do lists, or even writing something down on a sticky note.

One of them is a very driven guy, he has a few skills he’s working on improving, but he’s never needed (or wanted) any of the above tools. He just starts doing it, and it’s important enough for him to remember without needing to “track the habit”.

My partner, too, is more of the “why waste time writing about it, when I can just spend that time doing it” type of person.

Of course, I do see their point.

And they arguably get farther than many people who plan everything out and use habit trackers (although of course many others who do that probably get far too).

Buuuut I just can’t help it. I love planning, and planners, and any kind of productivity tool. The feel and smell and sound of the pages, or in the case of digital planners those cute little checkboxes and little digital trees that grow as you check off more habits… (I swear I’m not high. Here’s proof of what I mean.)

But the truth is: productivity tools don’t make you more productive. Taking action does.

People turn to these tools when they struggle to take action.

These tools can help you break down goals into smaller steps, which can be useful… if you take action.

Or they can help you work through hesitations and fears that hold you back, which can be useful… if you then take action.

But often, those tools are a way to feel busy without actually doing the things that matter.

You can spend two hours learning about overcoming procrastination, or filling in a detailed plan, and feel like you’ve done so much. But unless it’s going to make you take action, let’s face it…

They’re more of a feel-good pastime.

And that’s honestly great! It’s a way to spend time potentially without screens, using your brain to think and plan, and think positively about your future. I can think of much worse hobbies.

But it would do you a disservice to call this manifestation.

Manifestation only starts the moment you start acting.

(I have said before on this blog, that I think manifestation should really be called manifestACTION).

And I realized this after my partner dragged me out of bed at 8am on January 3rd. No literally, grabbed me by the legs and dragged me. (I held on tightly enough for the bed to move halfway across the room).

(This is what he had planned for me…)

I have always romanticized getting up early and being super productive before noon, but I could never manage to “just do it” consistently.

Then finally yesterday the tables turned, and I (very unromantically) just did it.

So I have decided to make that the start of my one-year challenge.

I’m mirroring this on Kathrin Zenkina’s one-year challenge, which she talked about in her podcast. She gave herself one year to put her all into going after her dream, like seriously give it her “no excuses, no bullshit” 100% effort. And see how far she’d come. (And boy, did she come far).

If you’d also like to make a change (finally) this year, I invite you to follow along, and if you want, share your own updates in the comments.

I’ll post what specifically I want to work on in the next post — but more importantly, right now I need to take some action.

If you’d like to join in, even if it’s much later than January 4th, feel free to leave me a comment so we can have a little community feeling around this 🙂