When it comes to ideas, wants, thoughts, relationships, goals, whatever it is, focus on having a bias towards action. I’ll take action over any hypothetical or analysis 80-90% of the time. They stem from each other, but they are two very different things and you can benefit from both. Fuel your theories by taking action & improve your actions by studying your results, theorizing and strategizing your next course of actions. Let that cycle continue, but focus on committing to action more than theorizing.
By nature, I’m a planner. I love analysis, I love theory. However, I’ve learned to “commit to action of theory”; this is a line I learn from Tim Ferris. Too often we enjoy thinking about or talking about the idea more than we actually enjoy doing what we’re thinking and talking about.
Remember the wise words, “a poor plan executed is better than a perfect plan not executed”? The main point is that it is in motion. The quality only matters if and when the plan is actually out there in motion. Don’t get caught up in thinking too much, don’t get caught up in trying to learn everything before you execute, biggest truth is: you learn while you execute.
This is the best form of learning to me. I have nothing against the traditional educational system, however I do believe we have to teach, implement and put an emphasis on action more than theory.
Most of the actions we take in school are related to doing research, writing, analysis given a set of guidelines and deadlines. It’s a great skill to develop and practice. However, I think the way we can grow from this is by focusing more on taking actions towards finding the problems; not just teaching how to follow guidelines and deadlines to research and solve problems.
When we’re following guidelines, researching and “working” to solve an issue by a deadline, we’re usually inactive until we’re given a specific task, rule, scenario and a deadline. That’s what we’ve trained and educated our world to do. How to solve a task once we present it to them. We haven’t actually taught the majority of our world how to spot a problem, or how to decide which problems they want to tackle.
I believe that small shift and focus to spot problems or define & articulate problems ourselves will have a huge impact. That’s the game changer. Once you’re out of school, when your formal education ends, your real-world education is a different kind of classroom. Most of the time out here, there is no guideline, there is no deadline. There is no person telling you to solve this specific situation and problem. You have to be the one to do so, by yourself and those whom you surround yourself with.
Many times, you hear about people out of school, you get a job with the security of benefits and a salary. From there you are handed tasks and asked to solve and complete them. Sometimes, you’re given a task, then trained and educated on how the company wants it to be completed. The company you work for found and decided “this is the problem I want solved; I want you to answer it like this for me”, so they pay you to work on “this specific problem that’s important to our company”. It doesn’t matter if it’s inspiring, it doesn’t matter if its fulfilling, interesting, challenging, mind-numbing, boring, draining or not. This is your assigned duty and task while working here, while earning this salary & these benefits; how you feel about it is not relevant, what you do with it is.
Unless of course you can decide what situations, you define as problems. You decide “this is the specific problem I want to solve”. Ultimately, this is what I wish for you. I wish you can recognize, clarify and determine what problem it is that you want to solve, then have the determination & resourcefulness to solve it. You not only know how to recognize a problem, you can decide the course of action you’d like to take and know how to find and use the necessary resources to solve this problem that is important and meaningful to you.
There’s nothing worst to me, than putting all your time and energy towards solving a problem you care nothing about. Why are you doing? What are you actually doing? You’re simply wasting time. Don’t misunderstand me though, if you’re taking a job to pay your bills, that in the short-term has nothing to do with the problems you want to solve, but it is helping you move towards being able to solve the problems you’d like to solve; then that’s being resourceful. That’s a “short-term sacrifice for a long-term reward”. It’s a narrow and lengthy journey, but keep your eyes and focus on the problem you’re moving towards to solve.
You must be resourceful to be able to solve problems. It’s not going to come from being theoretical and playing with a bunch of hypotheticals. It will be from taking action and being able to recognize the opportunities that arise within situations and problems. It’s about creating solutions, that’s what you’re called to do here, be workers of the earth. If you want to be a leader, you better take action. Leaders are defined by their actions, therefor to be a leader, you have to take action.
The company you’re currently working for is going bankrupt and laying employees off, can you find an opportunity within it? I have a great friend of mine, who told me this is how he started his business. He recognized a problem, he found an opportunity & he created a solution. The company couldn’t afford to keep a service & continue servicing one of their clients the way the client would like to; he jumped in and decided to create something of value for that client. He gathered a few co-workers, gave them an opportunity to work on something and stay earning by working on this project with him. Now, he had a group of 4-5 people working in his basement on a project to solve and service another company.
Just like that he built a business. All-of-a-sudden he’s business owner and with a team, a staff solving problems. He had to be theoretical in some sense to lay out the road map and vision and create a culture for the team. Yet, he had to take action in order to lead and create a solution. 18 years later, that business is still going strong with a team on 30 people & multi-million dollar annual revenue. All from recognizing a problem & creating a solution.
You learn while you do. You’re being theoretical while committing to action. You’re solving a problem you found and decide you wanted to solve. That’s what I wish for you when I ask you to “commit to action over theory”.
Theory is, to me very stimulating. It’s action-based because it does revolve around the study of some action (whether it’s a potential course of action, actions that are currently happening or have happened). It helps enhance and develop our problem-solving, and critical thinking muscles. Yet, it doesn’t necessarily help you develop your action muscle, enhancing your ability to execute what you’ve been analyzing. You have to move. You have to thinking it through, but most importantly you have to take the shots.
I am a highly theoretical person, I love having conversations about different subjects, diving in-depth about them, theories are fun to explore to me while sitting around and with others, but after that it’s time to get moving. Can’t sit still too much, then it doesn’t matter what insight you gained from all that analysis. Don’t get the “analysis paralysis”.
“Massive results come from massive action”
They feed each other, the more analysis you develop, the better your systems get. Which ultimately should result in better actions than before. The more action you take, the more data you have available to analyze and through this cycle is how you refine yourself, your life and whatever it is you’re working on.
Think and do. You’re skilled and resourceful. Find problems you want to solve, think about how you want to solve them, why you want to solve them, break it down, analyze it, plan, prepare, “Ah yes” you found a solution; but solutions aren’t always results. Commit to action over theory and turn your solutions into results.
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