Get Off the Couch! The hard-to-follow secret to self-improvement

It is sitting somewhere unread. That advice book promising to change your life. Just one book? Nope. Probably two or three. Or more.

The problem is inertia. Aristotle talked about it 1,700 years ago. Don’t forget Newton, Galileo, and Einstein. Inertia keeps you on the couch–at rest. It’s been proven.

That couch keeps you fat, frustrated, and flat broke.

The couch is the nemesis of your freedom.

But those advice books brim with stories of success: tiny waists, buckets of money, unbounding joy. What gives? What’s the difference between those who succeed and those who stay where they are? They get off the couch.
But how? Let me share a simple piece of advice. And don’t just read about it here, actually do it as you are reading. It can be life-changing for you.

1) Think of one of those advice books.

2) What did you want to get from the book? What was the reward you wanted? The goal you desired?

Obviously you didn’t really want to achieve the goal, because you never finished the book and certainly didn’t put any of its principles into action. But you did like the idea of the goal.

Do you still?

If so, continue reading this article. If not, think of another book and goal that still interests you.

Then—and you can do this on your couch—noodle on your goal. Why does it interest you? What would it mean to you were you to achieve that goal? Spend eight minutes imagining yourself having achieved it.
That’s right. Eight minutes.

During those eight minutes, with your eyes closed, fully imagine yourself having achieved the goal. Have the imagination be as real as possible with pictures, feelings, sounds, and people.

Make those eight minutes the most scintillating eight minutes of your life. Feel growing excitement and enthusiasm for you and your achievement. Make any pictures brighter and crisper, any sounds richer and clearer, and feel the positive emotions with every cell of your body. Bring in feelings of happiness, joy, peacefulness, contentment, and gratitude until you are so absorbed, you begin to cry with delight. You are vibrating yourself off the couch!

After your eight minutes, write about what you experienced. Write with positive words and affirmations and with full detail and clarity so when you read it sometime in the future, it is easy for you to bring your fully activated goal back into your being. You want to experience these emotions and feelings and imaginations again and again.

Then, think of that advice book. How many hours will it take you to read it? Grab your calendar and schedule me-time for reading the book. Commit to yourself you will read the book during those times. Before each reading session, re-read what you wrote about your goal so those vibrations raise again in your being. And, as you read, take notes so you can put into action the advice from the book.

That’s how you will overcome inertia and transform into one of those people who succeed. Print this article so you can easily re-read it and be reminded of the secret to getting off the couch.

This is actually one of the reasons I wrote my novel, Breakfast Tea & Bourbon. It’s a story of transformation with five best friends on a treasure hunt. It will help you see what can happen when you fully activate a goal. And there’s a twist that can get you instantly off the couch: woven between the lines of the story are clues to a real-life physical treasure hidden somewhere in the U.S. Find it and you will be awarded $50,000.

Reading the novel and hunting for that outer treasure is a great way to activate your inner treasures of creativity, ingenuity, and resourcefulness, which can help you achieve every goal you set. Inertia, be gone!