Why NOW is the right time to take action
It doesn’t matter whether you’re considering a change in your professional or personal life; now is the right time to act on your idea.
Does “act on” mean “implement immediately”? Maybe. Maybe not. What it does mean is “stop thinking and start doing.”
“Doing” can mean many things:
- do a brain dump to identify all the tasks you can think of that are needed to complete a project
- identify members of a beta test group for a new product or service
- create that content calendar you’ve been threatening to create
- research vendors who could upgrade your website
- rehab your LinkedIn profile
The list is endless.
Nothing can happen until you get yourself in motion.
So the question becomes, Why is now the time to take action?
There will always be a “better” time to do it.
Far too often, waiting until the time is “right” is simply an excuse to avoid risking discomfort, failure, or some other unpleasant outcome.
It’s impossible to create perfect conditions for any new undertaking. So you might as well deal with the current, imperfect situation and see what happens.
You can’t steer a parked car.
Progress toward a goal – by definition – requires action. There’s no way anything will happen if you never get yourself in gear.
The best – really the only – way to figure out what will work in the real world is to try it out in the real world.
Your idea may turn out to be brilliant or it may be a complete bust. Until you move it from the realm of fantasy to the actual marketplace, you can’t know if it will or won’t work.
Yes, putting it out there may mean you find out it’s actually a crappy idea, and, yes, that’s unpleasant. If you don’t put it out there, you can’t get negative feedback. Unfortunately, you can’t get wildly positive feedback, either, if you don’t muster the courage to try.
The longer you remain inactive, the harder it is to get moving.
If you’ve ever made the mistake of sitting down for an extended period of time after a vigorous workout, you know how painful it is to try moving when all your muscles have stiffened up due to inactivity.
Don’t let your idea sit so long that your motivation and your flexibility and your energy all end up in a painful state of paralysis.
“If not now, when?”
This question from the rabbinic sage Hillel the Elder pretty much bottom-lines the whole idea of taking action. If you get in the habit of ignoring it, you’ll be one of those people for whom “tomorrow” is always the busiest day of the week.
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What strategies and tools have you found useful in getting yourself out of neutral and into gear? Please share them in the Comments section below.
(Also, thank you to Alan Cleaver for posting the image of the alarm clock in the Creative Commons section of Flickr.)
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