The Ultimate Guide To Reaching Your Goals
It’s time to cut out the noise and get straight to action.
‘The superior man acts before he speaks and afterwards speaks according to his actions.’— Confucius
It is our actions that have brought us this far and not our words. To achieve your lifelong goals, action is all that is needed — not words.
We live in a hyper-connected world where taking action is easier than ever before. You can be a writer now by submitting your articles to blogs or publishing them here on medium. You can learn how to code for free online. You can learn design by going on youtube and watching endless videos on designing. You can even learn soft skills like critical thinking and the likes online by paying for it.
We don’t, however, tend to do much of these things as a means of getting started. Rather, we stay in our comfort zone and give out our opinions about how things should be.
In a world where tools for action are so readily at our disposal, we often refrain from taking action and instead resort to talking about our plans, goals and hopes. And the reason for this is simple.
The very thing that is supposed to help us with action is also that which is hindering us from taking those actions.
Attention is Modern-Day Currency
Attention is the new form of currency. And guess what takes a larger percentage of our attention? That smart thing in our hands hindering us from taking action. Our phones and technologies are getting smarter day by day, while their users are less and less focused.
Your actions are what determines how your tomorrow is going to be. If you want to have a good character, it starts with your actions and your actions all start from a single act. Joan Didion put it best when she said that character is the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life. It’s the source from which self-respect springs.
As Steven Covey put it,
‘Sow an act, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny. Our character is, thus, the composite of our habit.’
And in the wise words of Aristotle,
‘We are what repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.’
When you make taking action a habit, it moves you closer to your goals gradually. And if your actions aren’t moving you closer to your goals, then you are doing the wrong things. Your greatest superpower is your work ethic.
Cut Out The Noise
Why you are finding it difficult to take action?
It’s because you are drowning in the noise of the world around you. Action speaks more powerfully than words, but when you use words as your actions, you probably won’t stop talking.
When you drown in the noise of the world around you, it’s impossible to connect with the world inside you. And the world inside you is how anything worth doing begins. It’s how you translate ideas into results.
‘Yes, beliefs are important for they shape who we are, but our identity is revealed not through our beliefs or our talk, but through our actions.’ — Thomas Ingram.
People want to teach you how to run a business without actually running one. People want to teach you how to write without them writing anything. People want to teach you about a relationship while their mental wellbeing is being marred by a toxic marriage.
This is what the majority of people do. They talk incessantly without any action to show for their words .
If you allow the words of these people into your life, you will find yourself not taking any action in your own life. And Dale Carnegie put it best when he said ‘Pay less attention to what men say. Just watch what they do.’
If there’s something you want to achieve, the best way to do that is to actually take steps toward it, to move in that direction. Don’t just talk about it, but do something. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. Just take a small step in the right direction every single day.
If you want to get out of debt, take small steps toward becoming debt-free. If you want to save for a trip to the Carribean, save a little bit at a time. If you want to be a writer, write every day. If you want to get a new job, make moves in that direction.
But take action. That’s the most important step.
Don’t Think, Just Do
Action brings clarity. If you’re feeling stuck or uncertain, the solution is to take action, consistently. It gets you moving and points you in the right direction — even if it’s just a few steps at the beginning, says Anthony Moore.
In the ever-relevant words of the ancient philosopher, Seneca,
“Many words have been spoken by Plato, Zeno, Chrysippus, Posidonius, and by a whole host of equally excellent Stoics. I’ll tell you how people can prove their words to be their own. By putting into practice what they’ve been preaching.”
Actions prove who someone is, not who they want to be.
You may not know where you are going when you start taking action, but you will learn throughout the process, because action always reveals the next step.
The only way you can ever get closer to your goals is by moving, refusing profusely to stand still. And when you learn to make taking action a habit, you will find yourself becoming ever-closer to excellence.
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