Don’t Just Plan — Act!

Do you ever suffer from analysis paralysis?

It’s that feeling when you’re so caught up in a decision and overwhelmed at the options available to you, that you do nothing instead. Baffled by the choices, motivation fades and confidence crumbles. To commit to one path or to take the first step feels impossible.

After endlessly evaluating our options, we often end up do nothing or at best take half-hearted action with half our attention on the options we’ve just rejected.

When the paralysis wins, our situation remains fundamentally unchanged.

Progress is negligible or at best, stilted.
Rewards go unclaimed.
We remain stuck in the same place where we began.

All we’ve gained is another story to tell about what could have been — another ‘what if‘ or an ’ ‘if only’ to add to our personal narrative. We use it to lament our lowly progress, using it to beat ourselves up.

What a sorry tale.

Action — always action

Ready, aim, fire.

Think, Plan, Act.

On your marks, get-set, GO!

The third step in each of these calls-to-action demands, doing something, not just thinking about it. Coincidence? I think not.

There’s enormous merit in preparing and planning and we need to be clearly focused on our target if we’re to stand a chance of hitting it. If we don’t plan and figure out what we’re actually going after then we’re resigning ourselves to flailing around without purpose, relying on luck or serendipity to deliver positive outcomes.

Preparation is paramount. Ensuring we have the skills and tools for the job is essential. Recruiting the appropriate people into our team is vital.

Sooner or later though, we’ve got to actually do something — to fire, act or get going.

We need to pull the trigger and execute on the plan.

This is where the analysis paralysis kicks in for many. It’s in this moment where many blink, second-guess themselves, and reconsider.

Pushing on through this moment of fear, battling through the procrastination with confidence (even if it’s fake-confidence) — that’s where the bold and successful differentiate themselves from the meek and the also-rans.

Action carries a risk of failure of course. It demands that we confront our vulnerability, accept discomfort and push outside of our safety-zone. It requires that we leave the relative safety of planning, and move forwards into the execution phase.

Not all action is equal

Aimless action and busy-work are unlikely to deliver meaningful progress. Instead, they’re coping mechanisms — a way of prolonging and delaying. Indulging the instinct to procrastinate.

Meaningful action demands that we accept the uncertainty, that we embrace the possibility that this might work or that it might not work, and that we give it a go just the same — wholeheartedly and with our full and focused attention.

We may have underestimated the scale of the challenge.
We may have overestimated how much interest there might be in our idea.
We may have completely missed the point.
We may need to recruit help, or put in more practice.
We may need to do it differently, harder, faster, bigger, shinier, or more subtly.

Maybe, just maybe we’ll get it right first time.

Strengthen your ‘doing’ muscle

Each time we act, we give ourselves a chance of achieving success merely through putting ourselves onto the field of play. Sooner or later we’ve got to get in the ring and into the game. We’ve got to do the thing and ship the product.

When we do, we gain one more experience of what it feels like to take action. It’s another rep completed in the process of building the strength to act.

Taking action when our instinct tells us not to, is a skill that must be practiced repeatedly and diligently. Rejecting flight and choosing to fight must become second nature, the habitual choice. Just like every skill we strive to perfect, it takes time, repetition, and application to master.

Do, act, and fire at will. It’s the quickest way to hit your targets and to achieve your goals.

If you do, you may win. If you don’t, you give yourself no chance.

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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