Aligning your actions to what you want by using your thoughts

Almost no one on this planet aligns their actions with what they say they desire. It is a great travesty when a person doesn’t know what they desire, how much they desire it, or why. Yet, it is not uncommon that this is exactly the case. For most, life is a passive mix of whatever comes their way and whatever they feel in the moment. Even for the few who make an effort to pursue a specific aim, regular deviations away from what they say they want and towards something different are the norm. Not surprisingly, this leads to unproductive suffering and never ends the way people would say they wish it would.

You should strive to become an integral person, which means that everything you do is to get what you want the most, and that everything you do is the best way to get what you want. No one ever obtains integrity without taking the time to make an explicit plan.¹

What do you want? Answer the question truthfully, not with what someone else expects you to want. Honesty is a question of intentional alignment to understood value. What you desire should be what you believe is most valuable given your understanding of reality. The value you find in different possible actions is attained from your beliefs. In aggregate, they provide a menu of potential actions that you can rank according to expected outcome based on your desires.

How do you plan on getting what you want? What will it require, and are you willing to do it? If you don’t know, what are you willing to do to find out? It’s dishonest to expect what you don’t believe has any reason to occur. Don’t pretend you are pursuing a goal when you don’t have a plausible plan to achieve it.² Without a plausible plan, you can’t tell the difference between meaningful progress in a worthwhile goal and ineffectual busyness. With a plan, you will know what you are aiming for, what you are willing to pay to obtain it, and how to recognize when you need to make a change to what you want or how you plan on obtaining it. Your beliefs should tell you how to obtain what you desire. If they don’t, you need new or better beliefs that include causes that lead to the effects that you seek.

What are you actually doing? Honesty requires that you actually follow through with your plans without excusing deviations for ease, convenience, or comfort. Do what best aligns with what you really want. Live so as to deserve what you desire. It is dishonest to expect what you do not deserve, according to your beliefs of cause and effect.³ Your actions ought to be those that you believe will bring about the greatest progress towards your most worthwhile goals. How do you identify whether your plan is working or not? How effectively are you working towards the outcomes you desire? Is there a better or less expensive way? Don’t overlook the little choices in your life. You turn away from the big improvements by turning away from little improvements, and you turn toward big improvements by turning toward little improvements.⁴ The outcomes of your decisions compound as they chain together. Make the most of the little things, and you’ll see big improvements in your life.

How focused are you? Life has a way of filling itself, and those who do not choose an aim and intentionally order their lives toward it will find themselves at least as occupied as anyone else, just with results that provide far less joy to them than if they had been more intentional. How many things do you do that have nothing to do with what you want? Each distraction reveals itself to be more important to you than whatever you should have been doing. Apportion your greatest effort to what is most important, and the least effort to what matters the least. Care the most about what matters the most, and the least about what matters the least. Structure activities in the form that makes the most sense, all the time. Avoid the tendency to fill the empty spaces in your life with things of little value.⁵ Busyness is not progress.⁶ Figure out what you actually want, and work tenaciously towards it.

How much are you willing to sacrifice to get what you want? It is dishonest to desire something without desiring what is required to get it. Too often, we divorce the outcome from the path required to obtain it, desiring the outcome but not what is required to obtain it. The honest fully attach the desire they have for an outcome to the sacrifices they sincerely believe are required to obtain it. They use the motivation they have for what they want to find out how to get it, and to pursue it until they do. How you allocate resources provides an easy test for how well your actions align with your desires.⁷ Do you prioritize what you want the most above all other activities?⁸ How often do you desire something different than what you say you want? How often do you refuse to do what you believe is required to get what you want?