This Article Is Dead - Awaken It from Death

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How many blog articles have you read today?

How many this week?

How many personal development articles or books?

How many of those articles had information in it that could benefit your life or even change it on a big scale?

Now comes the big question: What have you done with that information?

Let me guess (and I am not mean, because I am guilty of this too) - for most articles, slim to none.

How come? Are we all stupid or brain dead? If you'd agree that doing some of the things that all these authors suggest would change your life for the better, how come you (and we all) not do it.

That is a frustrating question. Especially for authors.

Most Books and Articles Are Not Read

Do you know that the vast majority of self-help books (some statistics say about 95%) will never get read beyond the first chapter? That's amazing and frightening. And I don't think that this is much better with blogging in general and personal development blogging especially. 95% of the people will buy books, tapes, videos or go and subscribe to a blog (or only read some articles) and won't use the information.

It means that the real target group for any author in the personal development field are people who won't do anything with the information. This fact annoys me a lot.

I want people to change. I want people to use the information I have, and use it to change their lives for the better. Now I should be happy with people not following through (and still coming back), for they may make up the majority of my readers and if I would make some money from it via books, tapes, videos, courses, etc. I could make a fortune from people listening to my ideas, getting a comfy feeling from it, and then going back to their old lives and not changing anything.

But I don't like that idea. What could I do? Well, you tell me. But besides changing the structure of information and making it easier accessible (which will happen soon - watch out) - my influence on your willingness and commitment to change - is slim.

Information Without Action Is Dead

Believe me, that doesn't feel good for me. Pretty powerless, right? But I guess, that is something every author has to face. Once I've pinned down the words, there is nearly nothing I can do to direct the way you use it.

I spit out the words, and there they are, right in front of you - dead. Like the clay from which we were made according to the bible. I don't take this theory literally, but it is a great analogy. There you have the dead matter of words (printed or on a blog) lying in front of you. Yes, there is an idea hidden in it. But this is just potential. Potential that needs a vital force to turn it into life. Like God used breath to pour life into that clay, YOU need to breathe life into these words.

How Can You Awaken the Information from Death?

How can you breathe life into these words (or any good advice you read)?

You commit to doing something with it.

All words are dead unless you do something with it. All words are useless unless they make you do something. All advice is useless unless you use it. You see useless means also you use it less than it deserves. Maybe the quality of information is bad, but maybe (and very often) your quality of focus is bad. We are a generation of skimmers and collectors. We don't use information anymore, we scan it and collect it - but we don't apply it. Does that sound familiar? I could raise my hand because I was (and still am sometimes) guilty of that too.

I would even suggest you start reading less and start doing more.

You don't need to read 100 books on personal development, fitness, finances or whatever. This is just your fear of not doing it right. You know what - any doing is better than not doing at all.

Even the poorest financial plan is better than no financial plan. Even the smallest savings account is better than no savings at all. Even the smallest effort of changing your diet or starting to exercise is better than doing nothing at all.

Start early and adapt to the needs as they arrive.

  • For every article that you read, ask yourself: "What could I do today or this week with this information that could be beneficial to my life?"

  • And don't just think it - ink it. Write it down.

  • Commit to doing something with the information. If there are steps described you should take, take them. Do the things that 95% of the readers won't do.

  • And do it now, don't wait, or the small particle of life you had put into the article will soon vanish, and you won't remember doing something with it.

Be an exception. Be a creator. Breathe life into the dead words and awaken them from death, so they come to life for you.

AMEN.

P.S. I am about to create a new series of articles, that have a much more pro-active format. They will be shorter and much more focused on solving one specific problem by you following specific steps. Lookout and subscribe to stay tuned for this.

P.P.S. Oh and if you just skipped over this article and had not done anything with it, then I still want you to subscribe to my blog and buy any books and articles I will come up with so that you at least can join the 95% of people to pay me for giving useless advice to them. I still appreciate the money, but at least I've been honest and gave you a warning.