The Importance of Doing Something

You’ve heard me talk about setting goals. You’ve heard me talk about planning and the importance of sticking to that plan. What does all of this hinge upon? All of your goals and plans hinge upon one thing. Everything we hope to gain hinges upon the most important thing we have within us. The most valuable and important thing we have is our ability to do. That’s right, the most important thing we have is our ability to do. You can plan all day, think about something for weeks and relentlessly prepare, but there is one step that separates us from success: Doing it-Doing something.

If you don’t do it, you don’t reach your goal. If you don’t set a goal, you can’t reach a goal. If you don’t take action toward that same goal, you guessed it, not going to reach it. So what is the moral of the story? The moral of the story is to do it. Go out and do it. Do something. Try something, anything, just take action and you will be better off than you were beforehand.

There are a few sentences that I regularly hear from clients:
“I don’t know what to do or where to start.” And “I don’t know how to achieve that.”
I can help them weigh their options and find the best plan. I can encourage them to get started. The biggest step in the process is not taken by me though. It is taken you. When you decide to do it, you become the driver. I can help you navigate, but the wheel is in your hands.

“A goal without action is just a wish.” This is one of my favorite quotes. I use it in my life and I try to help others understand it too. If you live with this in mind, it is easy to take action. It is easy to do when you can think of the alternative and know that it will not help you reach your goal. Think about it: Where am I now? What happens if I don’t do anything? Nothing happens and you stay where you are. The scary part about this when talking about health is that we don’t stay anywhere. If we don’t maintain a certain lifestyle, our health actually declines and things get worse.

So why isn’t this situation more urgent? Why don’t we just do something to bring ourselves closer to what we want? Why don’t we seek ideal health and happiness? I think it’s because it is hard to do. Doing is more difficult than not doing. It is easier for us to think about something and see it as a long shot or even promise to do it in the future. The challenging part is to do something about it.

You don’t have to do it all at once. This is the biggest hurdle. We see a series of issues that have accumulated over a period of years. We think to ourselves, “I want to change now”, and we realize that there are many changes to make in order to improve our current situation. What we don’t realize is that we don’t have to do everything now. If you take one step today, even if you can take another step in a week or a month and you will be further along than you are today.

If you want to make a change: Do it. Do something. Start. Take action. Take a step. You know where you will get if you don’t do it: Nowhere. Wouldn’t it actually be easier to take a small step and see what happens? What’s the worst than can happen? It can’t be worse than not trying.