By Leo Babauta

The idea of taking action in our lives can be really appealing — we feel behind on so many things, and there are things we want to change (like habits), but it can all feel daunting.

So how do we get better at taking action?

In this short guide, I’ll share some best practices to improving this crucial life skill.

The practices are simple, but take some dedicated focus. If you’d like to get better at this skill, I highly recommend devoting yourself to this for a month or two and seeing if you can get some improvement.

Simple Actions

The key is to focus on the simplest actions possible. When people take on all the actions in their lives, they usually do one (or both) of these:

1. Think about all of the actions they need to take, get overwhelmed, and then shut down; or

2. Focus on one complicated task, with lots of decisions, and get overwhelmed and shut down.

These are understandable, but I hope you can see that this becomes a bit of a trap. We can’t take action if we’re getting stuck in these overwhelming complexities.

So the trick is to focus on one action at a time, and as simple a version of that action as possible.

If you need to do a complicated task that has 10 different decisions, can you focus on just the first step? Or just one decision at a time? For decisions, practice choosing from the heart without overthinking it — just choose simply, and trust yourself.

One small task at a time. This is the key!

Make a List

I recommend making a list of things you’re avoiding. Things that you’d like to take action on, but are feeling resistance about.

Then tackle 1–2 things on that list per day. Or just a small bite out of one of those things.

For example, if you make a list with 20 things on it … pick one of those things. If that thing feels really big, just do the first step. Then take the next step. Then call it a day with this practice.

By taking small steps toward tackling this list, you’ll be moving yourself forward.

Breathe & Trust

You’ll get overwhelmed and want to turn away from these tasks. That’s normal. This is the moment to pause and train yourself to stay a little longer.

The practice is to breathe more deeply, and soothe your nervous system. If you can get good at that, then you will vastly improve your ability to take action in your life.

Once you’ve calmed yourself a bit, then practice trusting yourself. Ask yourself, “How would I act here if I completely trusted myself?” Then practice that kind of action even if the trust isn’t there yet. Over time, you’ll develop more trust.

Encourage Yourself

It’s really important to develop the skill of encouraging yourself. Too often we discourage ourselves: “This is too hard. This is pointless. This is dumb. This can wait. I’m not good at this. I’m going to embarrass myself.”

If that’s how we talk to ourselves, no wonder we give up! Everything starts to feel pointless.

What if, instead, we learned to encourage ourselves? Every small action, try something like: “Nice, be proud of this! Keep going, you’re doing great so far.”

It might sound silly, but being encouraging and being proud of even very small actions and progress is the key to continually taking action.

Get Some Support

If you’d like some support with taking action in your life, then consider joining my Fearless Living Academy.

In FLA, we have a monthly challenge called The Practice, which is designed to have you practice taking action and improving with the skills needed. We lay out weekly focuses for practice, and give you an accountability group and tracking system. It’s really powerful.

In addition, there are focus sessions, dozens of video courses, and a monthly webinar with me (or a guest teacher).

Come join us!