An Exercise That Trains Your Child To Take Goal Directed Action

Hello everyone!  I'm in the middle of writing my latest book, A Teacher Like Homie G: Real Talk On What It Takes for Students of Color to be Successful.  Students at school call me, Homie G.  Why, because I'm like a homie, a friend who looks out for them.  My last name is Gomez, so that's the "G."  I'm writing this self-help book on success for teens of color because it's desperately needed.  I think many of you would agree with me.

I happen to know a lot about success, and what it takes for a person of color to be successful.  That's why the book includes many of my private stories of struggle with family, self, school, and life.  But I'm also equipping the reader with knowledge of the success principles that are universal, hard work, positive mindset, goal setting, taking action, are just a few.  And I've customized exercises so that they are fun or at minimum interesting to the young reader.

I'd like to share an excerpt from my book.  It's on a concept I call, Profitable Action.  At the end is an exercise that could help your adolescent or teen really get into goal writing and taking action.  Enjoy.

What is Profitable Action?

Profitable Action is the beneficial and accumulating action one takes to accomplish a goal.  I like to describe any other type of action as, “Dead Chicken Action.”  There is a popular saying: “Running around like a headless chicken.”  It’s a scientific fact that if not decapitated correctly by a butcher a dead chicken can run around aimlessly until its muscles stop twitching.  Symbolically, this is what the majority of all people are doing, including you.  Dead Chicken Action is aimless, clumsy, fatiguing, and deadly to success.

On his blog, Brian Tracy, the premiere authority on the topic of personal success, writes that less than 3% of all Americans have written goals and only 1% review and rewrite their goals daily.  So what?  Mr. Tracy, as well as multiple other authorities on success found that there is a common thread among the wealthiest and most successful people in America.  They write out, review, revise, and take action on their goals.  This is why the most important aspect of Profitable Action is that it’s goal oriented.

Profitable Action has three components.  One, it’s beneficial to you.  This can take many forms.  For example, exercising benefits your health.  Saving your allowance helps you make a later purchase.  Studying for tests benefits your grades and can even improve your chances of getting into a top university.  Shooting free throws daily makes it more likely you’ll make them in a game.  What you take part in must be useful.  If it isn’t, consider yourself headless poultry.  

Two, Profitable Action is accumulating.  This means that the action you take must build on itself like money earning interest in an account.  Case in point, if one of your goals is to run a half-marathon, you train daily.  You need to vary the volume and intensity of your workouts.  You wouldn’t just go on a 4-mile run one time and show up on race day.  If another one of your goals is to learn how to code before graduating from high school, then you’d take beginning, intermediate, and advanced courses at school, online, or at training academies.  Imagine packing snow from a small ball into the base of a snowman.  That’s accumulating action.

Finally, Profitable Action is goal driven.  Here is where we separate the super successful from the average.  Super successful people undertake activities that serve a greater purpose, to meet a goal.  Average people participate in activities that have disconnected purposes or no purposes at all.  That’s why average people don’t get anywhere.  If ever there was an expression to describe not taking Profitable Action, it is: “You’re all over the place!”

Below is an exercise that will make writing goals and taking Profitable Action fun for you.

Two Jars, One Bright Future, Exercise:

Whenever you write out a goal, pay yourself $1.  Simply take a piece of white paper, size doesn’t matter, and write “$1” on it.  Drop this slip of paper into an empty and clean spaghetti sauce jar.  Label the jar, “My future-Goals,” with a Sharpie.  There is no limit to how often you can make a deposit.  If you write out five goals, place 5, $1 deposit slips into the jar.

Get another jar and label it, “My future-Action.”  In this jar, you will deposit $100 dollar slips every time you take decisive action on a goal.  You may be wondering why taking action earns you $100 of funny-money while writing a goal only makes you $1.  Taking action on a goal is 100 times more difficult to do!  You have to get past your fears and doubts, and put your body in motion.  People fear failure.  They let doubt overtake their thought process so much they won’t even try.  Have you ever told yourself: “That won’t work,” or “I’m not good enough,” or my personal favorite, “I don’t have time”?  These are the excuses both lazy and/or fearful people give to keep from challenging themselves.

This exercise is true to life.  Those that take goal directed action win at life.  Those that don’t will struggle at life constantly.  Your jars will be visual reminders of how hard you’re working on your future.  The jars help you keep score.  You’ll see that after a few deposits, you’ll start really getting into it.  You’ll get the urge to keep doing it.  Using this strategy is not silly or stupid.  Silly or stupid is expecting money, fame, health, love, intelligence, success, to come knocking on your door.

If you have a student of color, this book will be one you will want them to read.  I shared this particular segment because it's really for everyone.  I didn't share the stuff that tugs at your heart, or your sense of humor.  I'm safeguarding that material until the book is out.  If you'd like to be updated on the publication of this book, please send me an email: calilimexica@yahoo.com.  Thanks for reading.

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