You need to reach a certain level of consciousness to realize that living proactively is essential ("life is either an adventure or nothing"). In other words, there are levels on which you first need to find your "why". Not as in "why to reach a goal" but "what's the point in doing anything else than necessary?". Despite being only 23, I have many hard years behind me and if I haven't lived them, I think wouldn't believe how different one's mindset can be. The typical example is that of the homeless: unless you have the food and the shelter, you won't think about caring, love, relationships, not to mention goal setting, financial independence and so on. I've been in a loop for many years which simply didn't allow me to build those bridges.

Recently I finished reading David R. Hawkins' book titled Power vs Force about the Levels of Human Consciousness. In the "dreaming" state (not to be confused with conscious visioning) one usually operates at the levels of fear (100), desire (125), anger (150), pride (175), maybe even at courage (200) and neutrality (250). Willingness (310), acceptance (350) and reason (400) are the levels which actually make you start building the bridges. ("Courage is the Gateway" anyways).

Personal development hit me a year ago when I operated at the levels of Apathy, Greaf, Fear and Desire and sometimes Courage also which provided the energy to stick to it. Looks like it took around 10 months to reach these higher levels. That's not too bad in a reasonably negative environment. Similarly to others in this field, I've given up TV and use my mind instead of letting it use me (Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer). I am living most of the Napoleon Hill principles and experimenting with the Law of Attraction. Constantly operating in the upper levels has been with me only in the past 2 months. It takes hard work but I enjoy this journey a lot. I love this kind of topics and those "a-ha" moments.

Scott points out the importance of enjoying the action. One of my goals is to make music that a specific audience enjoys. However, I can't always focus on joy while doing the small steps. Learning all the little tricks of music production is not always that much fun. Choosing the best of 400+ samples (finding them in the first place!), then mixing many together to produce a single kickdrum doesn't sound like 3 great days, does it?In reality it's not like "Let's play the piano and the song is done". [update: That's bullshit, but] The illustration is perfect.

I agree with the three steps (1. Enjoy the Action, 2. There Is Only Now, 3. Build Momentum). I'd add what needs to precede them is finding your why, getting to the level neccessary to live proactively. Unless you see the why behind proactivity, why would you want to persistently take action?