Taking Action & Keeping Commitments

Do you ever struggle to keep commitments…especially ones you make to yourself? Great! I’m not alone then.

If you’re like me, you sometimes let things that seem important get in the way of the essential. Sometimes I even know that the things that are getting in the way aren’t important, but I do them anyway. What’s with that?

I sat at lunch Monday with a friend. We’ve known each other since high school and it’s been fun to keep in touch. Not long after I jumped into the author marketing arena he shared with me an idea for a book. I LOVED it and am excited to see it come to fruition!

The topic of his book is taking ACTION. Over the last couple years I’ve noted how much energy comes from keeping commitments to myself. I grow in confidence and strength. So, I intentionally made a commitment to make a blog post a day for a week.

And as I write this first post for Author’s Catapult I am recalling several lessons I learned at The 2014 Book Marketing Summit.

My wife told me that she saw me researching more than taking action. That stung. I had just been reading a report from my mentor Rich Schefren and had just read about the necessity of taking action.

So, it was that day or the next that I sent out my first email to invite book marketing experts to join me in a Summit. That email was to John Kremer, author or 1,001 Ways to Market Your Books.

That book was influential in Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen selling 1/2 billion books. I was nervous to reach out to him to be sure, but with the recent kick in my pants I took action.  I sent the email at 3:08 PM. At 3:16 PM John wrote back. He was in! Momentum built and action became the order of the day, creating a successful entrance into the author marketing market.

Next, Jeff Goins’ wildly successful blog came about after he kept a commitment to himself and took action by getting up early and writing each day on his blog. That commitment, after 18 months, brought him a 100k visitor a month blog.

Those two lessons for me have been very powerful and they echo the thoughts of a recent book that I’ve been reading, The Science of Getting Rich. (HIGHLY recommend it!)

Clear thinking brings all that we want to us. Action allows us to receive it.

What action are you forestalling that could start the riches waiting for you flowing into your life? I’d love to hear about it below!!