"You can't get anywhere in anything without work, action, movement..whatever you want to call it." Scott Haines Just getting on with doing something however poorly is important. Mike Litman talks about how you can upgrade your conversation if you just get on with things by taking action. He uses the example of one man or woman talking about getting a website up. He or she talks for 6 months. This is boring! Another man or woman takes speedy action and gets his or her website up in one week. It is not perfect but he or she can now move on. They are no longer talking about putting up the website. They are talking about bringing in traffic. This is exciting! They have moved on but can still improve their website as they go. They have moved from being nervous about putting up their website to being excited about it. Another person might dither about starting an ezine. Another just starts one. She might lose many subscribers as she goes but at least her ezine is improving and more and more subscribers stay on. Her talk is full of excitement and enthusiasm. Someone talks about writing a book. Another one just starts writing every day and gets on with it. His or her book may not be great but it can be improved. The talk is no longer about writing a book; it is about improving a book and selling it! About 15 years ago, I took action to open a martial arts school instead of just talking about it. I didn't feel too confident and my first lesson opened with just one student coming through the door. My marketing had been practically non-existent. However, things soon improved. Two years later the class was thriving. If you are interested, check out the photo on the home page of my self-defence site. The URL for this is listed below. The photo on the right is of my class in 1992, about two years after the one student had appeared. The school is still going strong in 2005. Eva Gregory has written a great quote: "Inspired action is the difference in potential and actuality." However, sometimes uninspired action is also the difference. We cannot always afford to wait for inspiration. Inspiration often arrives after we have started. If a thing is worth doing it is worth doing badly at first and improving later. This is the basic principle behind brainstorming. Early criticism kills a creative discussion. Early criticism can stop creative action in its tracks. Of course, it helps, to plan and learn the necessary skills but if you wait too long for these your project will die. Action, movement and work are essential. Above all, if you take action on things, you will live an exciting although not necessarily a comfortable life! |
