People will often tell you to ‘think before you act.’ And, while there is some wisdom here, the truth is that the opposite is potentially much more powerful. You need to act before you ‘think.’ Meaning that you need to take action and get into the flow – before your nerves, your worry and your ‘over-thinking’ a situation paralyze you and prevent you from moving forward.
Have you ever been in a situation when you really wanted to accomplish something, and you really cared about the outcome – but you were nervous and afraid to take the first step? And then the more you thought about it, the more things you imagined that might go wrong? So, you just froze up and did nothing? By contrast, have there been other times when you’ve just taken that first step and plunged in? Felt the nervousness evaporate and get into that magical flow? This is the essence of ‘acting before you think.’ Take the bold action to move forward, begin to feel a positive momentum and be on your way to success.
Similarly, have you ever gone through a period of time when it just felt like nothing was going your way? Or when you felt overwhelmed and like you couldn’t persevere through a difficult challenge or reach a desired goal? Perhaps it led you to feeling like you should stop what you’re doing, put it off, or say I’ll do it another day. The temporary relief from taking a break or procrastinating may give us just that, temporary relief, when we know deep down inside it’s not truly what we want. Oftentimes what life requires from us is to simply act, big or small.
Think about something as simple as taking a fall. We may fall, scrape our hands or our knees, but what do we do? We get back up, and we keep walking. We don’t lay on the ground, flustered by indecision, waiting for someone to pick us up. We choose to keep moving forward. Maybe a little worse for the wear, but the point is, we act. We’ve all heard Nike’s famous motto “Just Do It” and much of life is actually summed up in this simple yet powerful phrase. The late Kobe Bryant would often speak to this when discussing his training regimen. Some days he wouldn’t want to get up for a 5am gym session or would feel sore after a game. But instead, he chose to act no matter how difficult it may have been, and the results speak for themselves.
Every day, there are people around the world faced with whether to choose inaction over action. And if you’ve ever been faced with that challenge, remind yourself that even if we take a small action towards a goal we strive to achieve, we’re still choosing to act and not be paralyzed by fear or uncertainty. What you’ll find is that over time, you’ll get to where we want to go. And perhaps it takes us longer than anticipated, or you find that you want to go in a different direction with whatever it is you aspire to, maybe even fail in some cases. The point is you did it. But by choosing to act, we’re also choosing to grow, to learn, and evolve. And that’s something no one can ever take away from you.
