And action! We are all familiar with a director’s call of action, so it’s a good mental image to kick off this post.
Action creates motivation.
If the director doesn’t shout action then the actors don’t act, the scenes aren’t filmed and the film isn’t made.
Without that all-important action, the scene is nothing but an unrealised thought.
A funny thing happens when you take action instead of merely planning. You become more aware of what’s possible and what isn’t, creating a stronger foundation for future plans and goals. We learn as we go. This is why I’m such a big believer in taking action now – and not later!
So let’s look at why taking action is such a powerful tool to utilize:
We learn from our mistakes
If you’re like most people, you’ve probably learned a lot in life through the mistakes you’ve made. Mistakes are a part of learning and can be your greatest teacher.
The next time something goes wrong in your life, don’t beat yourself up or feel intimidated by it. Instead, look at it as a great opportunity to learn something new about yourself and how to handle difficult situations better in the future.
So it’s great that we learn from our mistakes, but, if we don’t take action and actually start, then we will never make mistakes and we will never learn from them.
Learning from our mistakes is such a powerful tool that I have published a whole post covering it: Don’t Be Afraid to Make Mistakes
Learn as you go
A good lesson for anyone learning to do anything is that you don’t have to know everything before you start.
Looking back at all the things I tried and didn’t try in my life, I can confidently say that I have learned far more from the things I tried.
Sure I made mistakes and got hurt a few times, but I learned. I grew as a human.
As for the things I didn’t do – I learned nothing. Maybe I avoided some hurt, but I didn’t grow. I missed an opportunity.
If I take this blog as an example: I didn’t know the first thing about starting a blog before I started.
I could have decided to research every single thing about blogs before starting. I could have taken writing lessons and studied the English language. I could even have built a website from the ground up, rather than starting with WordPress.
I could have done all that and then started to publish posts.
But if I had taken the above approach then I would still be waiting to start and I would have zero blog posts. I would have missed out on practical learning and would be missing vital bits of information. I still wouldn’t know my writing style. I wouldn’t have data from previous posts to see what works and what doesn’t.
I learned as I went.
You don’t know what you don’t know
This saying is scary to many – you don’t know what you don’t know.
So how can you just start when there is so much you don’t know?
Well, how will you find out what you don’t know? Research to the nth degree? Ask the world what it is you should know before starting?
You certainly can. But what makes you think they know everything? There will be things that they don’t know that they don’t know, too!
By starting, by taking that first action, you open yourself up to the unknown, but you also open yourself up to learn and grow.
Consider this: how can you ask for an answer to a question that you don’t know exists?
Starting will expose what you don’t know, it will raise questions that you would never have thought about before, and you can then fill in those gaps.
This is why it’s important for us to try and understand what our blind spots are and how they affect us, as well as others around us. And once we do this, it becomes possible for us to make changes in our lives that can help us grow into the people we want to be.
Action creates motivation
Motivation is a tricky thing.
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the idea of taking action, but once you start, you’ll be amazed at what you make yourself do.
Many people believe that motivation comes before action – but this is so not often the case! Action creates motivation.
When we take action, inspiration can follow suit and push us further than we thought possible.
A useful trick is to start small – I will write for 5 minutes today.
5 minutes isn’t a long time and most of us will be able to push past whatever is blocking us and put in 5 minutes of work.
The beauty of this technique is that once the motivation and inspiration kicks in then we will likely find ourselves working on and on, well past the 5 minutes we set out to do.
Of course, there are times when 5 minutes are up and we are still staring at a blank page. That’s ok too. We tried and were unsuccessful this time. Pat yourself on the back for at least trying and move on with your day. You can try again later.
The 5 second rule
The 5 second rule is a book and technique by Mel Robbins.
The simple idea is that when you are swaying back and forward on something you should do, you count down from 5 and then do it.
The process of the countdown gets our brains in gear and we end up starting. The longer we hang around, the less likely we are to start.
I like this idea as it gets us started. It’s like a cheat code for fighting procrastination. Once we get to zero and start then the motivation and inspiration is just around the corner.
So next time you are putting off what you know you should be doing, start counting down from 5 and get going!
Conclusion
Don’t wait until Monday to start your business, don’t keep putting off that project at work because you “have to get it perfect first.” Just do it!
Action is the only way to make progress in life, and if you have a goal that’s important enough to you then your future self will thank you for taking action now.
Remember that the perfect time or idea or people or circumstances don’t exist – but if you have yourself and an idea worth pursuing, then you can start and who knows where you will end up.
But what if you don’t? Well, you’ll be stuck in the same place with no progress being made towards your goals. The choice is up to you.
Thanks for reading
Iain McClafferty – The Five Year Mortgage
