What Is Binary Action?
Binary action is the simple concept of choosing between two options: taking action or not taking action. Although it may seem like a small choice, it has a huge impact on the direction of our lives and the type of person we become.
By choosing to take action, we are proactively working towards finding a solution, improving our circumstances, and moving forward. By choosing not to take action, we passively allow events to unfold and leave our lives to chance.
And I get it! I know how frustrating life can feel at times. I remember working with a client who felt so overwhelmed by life that they had totally given up on things getting better. They stopped working toward their goals, didn’t spend any time thinking about their purpose or how they could contribute to the world, and life pretty much consisted of them going to work, sleepwalking through the day, sleeping, and waking up to do the same thing over again. In their words, they felt aimless. It wasn’t until we worked together and they got a clear vision for their life that things started to turn around and they started a business that brought vibrancy back into their heart. It was beautiful to watch them experience this caterpillar-to-butterfly, back-to-life transformation unfold.
It’s Important To Recognize That We Cannot Control External Events
Listen, it would be nice to be able to dictate the actions, words, or thoughts of others, the weather, how many people enroll in our programs, or even the flow of the economy but the reality is we are not God and even deeper than that even God allows free will.
This is awesome because it helps us to focus on the things we have control over and that’s simple. We don’t have control over:
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- Other people (not even our kids)
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- How much our finances grow in the stock market
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- How much the value of our home appreciates over time
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- The price of groceries
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- Natural Disasters
However, we can control how we respond to these external factors and our actions to these events are what gives us the power to shape our lives and the world around us.
The Power To Shape Your World
It’s so easy to throw up our hands and declare, “this is too much” or ask, “what on earth is going on” but the reality is you are 100% controllable. And here’s some next-level insight. Control means “to exercise restraining or directing influence over” you’re actually created to exercise dominion over yourself and your assignment! This means life is not meant to be about managing or restraining. You are here to discover your purpose, develop yourself, and dominate which means do what you’re created to do to the best of your ability THEN to the required level of performance THEN to exceed the requirements. Dom.in.ate!
The power of binary action is that it allows you to manage your performance and honestly look a how well you practice integrity because it’s easy to put something on the calendar and tell yourself you’ll get it done later but integrity calls you to hold yourself accountable and look at how well you perform your own word.
And it’s not about being hard on yourself or striving for perfection. This is about self-examination and honesty. If you honor your word keep doing it. If you notice that you have times when it’s easy to disregard your word dig into that and uncover what’s going on there because how you do one thing shows up in how you do everything.
So if you disregard your word when you experience a specific type of trigger or temptation when you see that you have an opportunity to heal. Change the behavior that is not aligned with who you desire to be and embrace your growth.
Important Links Mentioned This Episode:
Our best-selling time management workshop – Master Your 5% Activities
