Get Anything Done, Part 1
Written by Michael Weaver | Follow me on Twitter | Free updates via Email.
This is the first post in a four-part series. As I mentioned here, each month in 2011, a series on a different topic will be posted every Wednesday.
In life, we can certainly rationalize just about anything. We can convince ourselves that we are doing the things we need to be doing and believe it. But how do we know if we are right? This can be a complicated question with a complicated answer – if that’s they way you think. I repeat – knowing you are on the right path can be really complicated – if that’s the way you think. Rationalization is an amazing thing and can do a number on our ability to get where we are trying to go.
So, when we are on a particular chosen path – how do we know if what we are doing is right? You actually don’t. It’s easy to look at someone who has experienced success and see that they seemingly have all the answers. But don’t forget, success stories are full of times of failure and lessons learned. There’s a conclusion that you can come to if times of failure and lessons learned are happening – and that is that action is being taken. Or, in other words, progress is being made.
You know you are on the right path if you are doing one thing with consistency – taking action.
It does make sense. After all, if you want to get anything done you have to take action, make things happen, research, ask questions, follow up, get a mentor, the list can go on and on and on. I have often wasted weeks at a time because I just wasn’t sure about the path I was on – and that is a problem. Because what do you do when you start to second guess yourself? You do nothing and absolutely nothing gets accomplished. Taking action on a consistent basis would have involved me asking questions to the right people, talking about my thoughts, and moving on to the next course of action immediately. So instead of losing weeks at a time, my path is carved out based upon the action taken, feedback received, etc.
It’s That Complicated
I was recently listening to some talk radio and the host was talking about the importance of what we tell ourselves. He really stressed the exact language that we choose to use – getting at the impact of a negative versus positive approach. A struggling relationship is a good example of how this often happens to people. You’ll hear a person tell a friend that “It’s complicated, I don’t think you’d understand”. Or, “It’s complicated and we can’t seem to figure it out”.
Well, think of a situation in your life that you could potentially deem “complicated”. Is it really that complicated? Or, is telling yourself that it’s complicated just a convenient way to avoid it and rationalize a bad situation? Is it an easy out for you if you know that you’ve made some mistakes? It could be any reason similar in nature to the ones I just mentioned. More often than not, there are very distinct reasons for situations that we might tell people are “complicated”. These complicated situations can always be broken down and simplified into source reasons.
It’s That Simple
I am attempting to grow f.i.t. into an influential blog that helps it’s audience and is a personal catalyst to something greater than myself. It’s not something I’ve done before, but I don’t care. And if there’s something you want or need to do that you haven’t done before – well, so what. There are a lot of different ways to approach new challenges that certainly have been done before, just not by you. There’s also a lot of advice and information available at my fingertips to scour and learn from, but information overload is not always a good thing. I could constantly ask myself – should I do this or do that? I can do this, or I can do that. My point is that I don’t really know if what I’m doing is actually the “right’ thing to do and if I’m on the “right” path. And that doesn’t matter.
Simplify. Knowing that you are on the right path is beyond you. Taking action in a consistent manner is completely up to you and within your abilities. Based on that alone, the path you are traveling down is naturally developed through the actions you take. So you have to focus on getting things done, taking action.
Worth Remembering
What’s worth remembering is why you are taking action in the first place. When you need to get something done – there’s always a reason behind it. If there wasn’t, you wouldn’t care and it wouldn’t be on your radar. The end result should always be worth it and drive you towards taking action. The end result may be a few hours away, or perhaps it’s years ahead of you. Either way, the more you can do today, the more you can do now, the closer you are to making that vision of an end result a reality.
Part 2 Coming Next Wednesday
As I mentioned above, this is the first part of a four-part series. Next week I’m going to talk about using small things as catalysts to your success. Small successes along the way are the key to an overall accomplishment.
—
Image by pagedooley.
If you liked this post, please subscribe, hit the retweet button or follow me on twitter!
Thanks for reading!!
Related Posts
What up!
[...] This is the second post in a four-part series. As I mentioned here, each month in 2011, a series on a different topic will be posted every Wednesday. Check out Get Anything Done, Part I [...]