How Massive Action Creates Serious Weight Loss

“We are bleeding money.”

Over the last four years my husband and I had been — 24/7 — diapering, feeding and caring for twin infants slash toddlers. Now that my boys were semi-functional, I was raring to take my two to Lake Tahoe, the beach, various Children’s Museums and so forth.

In short, I wanted our family to travel.

“We can afford to drive around the corner,” my husband said. “Call me when you arrive.”

Thanks to the ’08 crash, the planet was reeling. Money problems everywhere, houses not selling, belts tightening.

That said, Oh, the Places I Wanted to Go.

After my husband announced, “not a chance”, I didn’t argue or suggest ways we could “rob Peter to pay Paul,” or call my best friend crying about the dumb choice I’d made in a husband (jk).

I said to myself alone, My. Kids. Will. Travel. I felt those words into my very marrow. I had no idea how we’d find the bucks for travel, I only knew that – contrary to all of the evidence around me – we were going places.

And we did.

Here’s how it went down.

After a few false starts, I asked an editor-friend who produced a local parenting magazine if she’d be interested in a travel column.

She jumped at the idea and — with that email to Barb — I’d created a small job for myself. My family and I traveled plenty and after each trip, I’d write about our experiences for Barbara’s mag. (We had a blast and, I was getting paid — not a ton — but still.)

Was it a fluke?

Back then, I didn’t have the vocab to talk about why my travel-determination worked, but I knew something – outside of the ordinary – had taken place and I wanted to figure out out what it was, so that I could replicate my results.

Here’s what I learned.

Turns out, those in the coaching world – people like Tony Robbins — call what I stumbled upon “massive action.” Tony Robbins didn’t invent massive action any more than Ben Franklin invented electricity, but they both noticed a reality and pointed it out to the world.

To me, massive action is feeling — into the very fiber of my being — that something I want will happen (come hell or high water).

Before I knew the term “massive action,” I called it “leaving no stone unturned.” Quick example: Long before I had kids, I had to pass a licensing exam and I used “no stone unturned” to study for the big, scary test. I did everything conceivable to pass, and I figured, if I didn’t pass then it must be due to something outside of my control.

But I passed. (And trust me, every stone was turned.)

How massive action works.

Massive action is happening when you throw everything you can possibly think of at a project or a problem until the door swings open.

It’s when you’re at your most determined.

When you go massive action on something that matters deeply to you, it’s almost as if the Universe says, “Oh, brother. This mom in California will not stop knocking at the door. Just give her travel so we can get onto other things.”

Writing is your portal.

To know what’s going on in your heart and head, write.  Writing is free therapy and is always there for you. Free-write every morning. Free-write like nobody is going to read it (because they won’t). Free-write to discover what makes you tick.

Every morning, ask yourself these questions and see what your super sophisticated brain spills forth:

• What do I want for my future-self in six months?
• What are five things that matter most to me in life?
• If I had a life mission what would it be? (Give three life mission answers.)
• What is something that matters to me that the rest of our culture tends to overlook?

Consciously using massive action.

Once I heard the term “massive action,” I was far more successful in wielding its power. Through the last ten or so years, here’s how I’ve added to my life using massive action:

• My sister and I – who, at one-time, couldn’t talk on the phone for twenty-minutes without both of us becoming enraged – are currently going on four years of a loving, argument-free relationship.
• I added a recumbent trike to my life that was “too pricey to afford,” but thanks to massive action, I bought a demo model that wiped $1500 off the price tag (plus it came with a bunch of upgrades and I didn’t pay shipping).
• I massive actioned us into a gorgeous home in Atlanta just eight-minutes from my husband’s job (a commute practically unheard of in Atlanta).

Your challenge:

Think massive action is too woo-woo for your life and probably doesn’t work anyway? Okay, then try this challenge: choose one thing you’d like to have in your life that’s just a tad out of reach. (Let’s start slow.)

Then apply massive action to your project:

One

Begin by writing about your project. What will you feel when you’ve brought home the new item/lifestyle? (Write about ten feelings you’ll experience when you lose twenty pounds, slide that new kayak into the river, or hand over $1,000 to your favorite charity.)

Two

Free-write ten common sense actions you can take to attain your item/lifestyle.

Three

Now free-write ten insane, totally wild actions you can take to attain your goal. (As in, “I could steal a kayak, I could build my own” and so forth. The crazier, the better.) As Prince said, “Let’s go crazy.”

Four

Now, take action from your list, all the while telling yourself that stopping is not an option. Just keep on keeping on:

• If it takes longer than you’d assumed, keep going.
• If it’s much harder than you’d imagined, also keep going. (Your mantra: we can do hard things.)
• If the December holidays, your birthday, rain, snow, a hot summer, a bad cold etc creates more of an obstacle than you’d anticipated, keep going: no excuse to stop.

The main directive: don’t stop writing, experiencing your feelings, and engaging in action until that kayak is under your butt in the river.

That said, here’s one wrinkle in the massive action story:

• Let’s say, I want to walk into my garage and find a gorgeous, fire-engine red Jeep waiting for me. But – and this is key – I don’t want the Jeep to the exclusion of my sons’ (pricey) lessons like theater, piano, and Krav Maga.
• Or say I love the ocean and want to live near it, but uprooting my kids from Atlanta is a deal-killer. (The boys would be horrified to leave friends, infrastructure and so forth.)
• And say I need a weekly bathroom cleaner. (Don’t we all?) But at $100 a week (or more), it’s a no-go currently because of the boys’ many lessons.

You see, I only go massive action on an item or lifestyle if I know — from my free-writing — that I won’t let a single thing stop me from achieving that change in my life. Sure, I could go all massive action and put a gorgeous red Jeep in my garage, but I know that other goals that also truly matter to me would go sideways.

Massive action can only happen if nothing will stand in our way of getting what we want like – in my case — family travel, or getting along with my sister, or buying a recumbent trike.

I only go massive action on something that matters to me – as long as the item/lifestyle doesn’t threaten other aspects of my life that are also high priorities (like my family and animals).

I’d love to hear a time you’ve gone “massive action” on something — even though you might not have known the name for it — that matters to you!!

♥, Wendy