Why action is the most important habit
And why you struggle with it
I am the world’s best procrastinator. If there was an Olympic procrastination contest I would wear the olive wreath crown. But, despite this I manage in the whirlwind existence of day-to-day living to get stuff done. Good stuff. Quality stuff.
I’m never satisfied, but I do get stuff done. How do I get stuff done while being the world’s preeminent procrastinator? Very simple. I force myself to take action. An example would be writing this post or writing anything. I don’t know what is going to come out until it starts to flow and it won’t start to flow until I get the gears turning.
Once you’re in motion things happen. I don’t know why. The pump needs to be primed with action.
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Why don’t we take action? Why would people spend their energy complaining about things instead of taking action to change them?
The number one reason, the ‘why’ behind inaction is very simply: fear. After you peel back enough layers of the onion you’ll find fear there at the center like a rotten pit, brown and festering.
What are you afraid of? Mostly failure. Some folks are afraid of the change that action brings, but for the most part we are afraid of taking the wrong action, making mistakes and, heaven forbid, looking like a fool.
I suppose this has some evolutionary merit. It stops us from running off cliffs and diving into raging rivers. This consideration of potentially uncomfortable or deleterious results is a limiter that serves to protect us from bad choices. But in today’s world there are no physical alligators over the next hill, only metaphorical alligators and our built in limiters stop us from taking action.
What you learn when you force yourself to take action is that, yes, indeed, action precipitates mistakes of all sorts. You know what ‘mistakes’ is code for? ‘Mistakes’ is code for learning. These are the important things that taking action brings to the surface.
These mistakes quickly float to the surface like dead fish when you begin to move. They reveal blind spots in your knowledge and skill set. They reveal unsupportive relationships and who your friends and coaches are, and who is holding you back for their own petty privilege.
Sometimes these mistakes you make are so great they are called ‘failure’. Then you get the true and deep learning. You get thrust into a washing machine of emotional, physical and life turmoil through failure. And you come out the other end changed.
The greater the failure the greater the cleansing properties. The greater the mistakes the more you will learn. That rotten fear at the core of your inaction is trying to keep you from these mistakes and this failure. But is keeping you from great learning and soul-cleansing experience.
Action is the shortest path between where you are now and somewhere else. In my experience that somewhere else is always better. You emerge from the washing machine with the dead fish cleaned out, a new and stronger soul. A better human. A possessor of confidence and knowledge that will help not only yourself but your family, your peers and your community.
Yes, my friends once you surmount the fear of failure and take action you not only become stronger you define yourself as a leader. Leaders are out in front finding the traps and taking the arrows. Leasders are testing the boundaries and finding the right trail. This is how leaders are a service to their communities.
This is why you always hear that leaders have a bias for action.
When you to decide to take action, to do something, to move forward, what are some of the things that will claw at your heels and hold you back? Well, my friends, if you want the quintessential masterpiece on this topic you should invest in a book called ‘The War of Art’ by Stephen Pressfield where he eloquently enumerates the many evil faces of inaction, or as he refers to it ‘resistance’.
My two personal and favorite ways to resist taking action are over-planning and useless activity.
I have in my possession at any point in time several sheets of paper. On these pieces of paper are all the grand designs and wonderful ideas for projects that I am going to get to. I spend hours poring over plans and details of projects without actually taking action.
When I have spent a good deal of time and energy creating a thorough plan, I lean back in my chair, self satisfied that I have made progress and put that project aside…sometimes FOREVER! The planning has replaced the actual doing and not only don’t I get any results or quality work from this, I don’t learn anything.
Over planning is insidious for me because the energy I put into the planning is a substitute for the actual doing. You have only so much energy and creativeness and you need to focus as much as possible into the actual creative act and not into thinking and scheming about the creative act. Planning relieves the internal tension and negates the need for action.
By over planning I am actually giving way to fear. Fear of the unknown. I create plans to avoid taking action because I don’t know what to do. I would suggest that instead I could take that same energy and set out on the unknown path and in this way learn the true path.
I’m not saying that there is no value in planning. The value in planning is that it allows you to take a more direct path to the goal. I am saying to be careful in how you partition your energy between the planning and the action and to make sure you don’t replace the action itself with over planning.
Make yourself a rule that draws a line. Give yourself a deadline or accountability. Build triggers into your plan that force action. Plans my create the framework for action, but action creates value.
The second thing that I do very well is replacing action with busyness. Also in my possession at any point in time will be lists of tasks and to-dos that I am working on for any week or day. I will spend a very productive 8-12 hours in a day working feverishly on doing expense reports, shopping for groceries and picking up dry cleaning.
When I’m not procrastinating by over planning I’m procrastinating by keeping busy.
The evil nature of busyness is that it feels like you are doing something. It feels like you are taking action. But you’re not. You’re spinning like a cog in a machine with a broken drive mechanism. (Lots of noise and smoke but no output.)You get to draw a smug, self satisfied line through that task and get that little hit of dopamine as a reward.
But what do you have at the end of the day? Clean suits, fresh lettuce and an expense check, to be sure, but nothing sustainable. You have learned nothing. You have failed to advance your life an inch. You have taken lots of action that stirred up dust, but when the dust settles you look around and you haven’t moved.
To combat these compatriots of resistance you need to stop kidding yourself about what is useful action and what is not. Planning is not bad in itself, but as a replacement for forward progress it is stealing your creative hours.
Tasks on your to-do list may be essential for life and require your attention but understand that they do not make a difference.
The way I have overcome these two specific afflictions on my ability to take action is by creating sacred spaces for the important work. Maybe this is on an airplane, maybe this is out on a meditative run, maybe this is early in the morning when my mind is bright and there are no distractions. I sit and work on important work. Work that creates something. Work that sustains.
In this place you have a set time that you give to the work and to the action. This can be an hour, or two hours on the calendar that you mark aside for this work. This can be a quantitative step like ‘3 pages’ or ‘1,500 words’.
What are the habit steps to make a successful sacred place for taking action?
First you set the expectation and you quantify it. “I will spend 2 hours working on this presentation without distraction from 9:00 to 11:00 on Friday.” You mark it in your calendar. You physically, mentally and procedurally reserve the sacred place for this action.
Second you remove the distractions. Create your sacred space so that the phone doesn’t ring, the texts don’t buzz and you are isolated from social media for that time and space. Set the expectation with yourself and make it part of your habit, your ritual, to disconnect and make sacred this space.
When you begin the action at the appointed time you may have trouble disconnecting from the screaming, shrieking world. It’s hard to just switch from busyness mode to creation mode. One tip is start by relaxing. Do some breathing meditation for the first couple minutes to calm your mind and put the busy things back on the shelf.
This allows your mind to engage in the creativity without looking over its shoulder all the time. This allows you to drop into a creative or action flow state for the sacred time. Recently I have begun to put my earbuds in and listen to meditation music while I create. I find that the words in normal music are a distraction and the calming music with no words, just tones, helps me stay in a creative state.
Finally just start. If you have no idea what to do or where to start don’t stress. Stress and worry create bio-chemical negative feedback loops that block your creativity. Just start. If you are totally stuck you can bring out a blank piece of paper and free write for a bit or doodle to open up the pathways of action.
If I am working on a presentation I’ll start with the story. I’ll begin with a blank sheet of paper, create and outline and draw a storyboard. Then I’ll turn that into a first set of slides and a script.
If I’m working on research I’ll read and take notes as I go. I create my talking points around the research material as a way of visualizing the content of the message in the research.
As you work resist the deamons of distraction. Once you get into action you still don’t have the battle won. Resistance will continue to claw at you as you strive to move important, soul satisfying work forward. You may have to remind yourself that this is a sacred space and you need to refocus on the task at hand.
When the time is up, or the pages have been read or written thank yourself. Whether what you have done is good or great it is action manifested and you have moved forward. Have gratitude for this time and rejoice in it. That will create a reward for the habit to make it a positive feedback loop. When resistance tries to talk you out of this session in the future you can remember how good and satisfied you felt at the end of your session and how you accomplished.
To bring it all full circle; we all procrastinate. You can’t serve the world unless you take action. Take action. Make taking action your default setting. Make being action oriented one of your affirmations and goals.
Action is a perfect antidote for complaining.
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“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”- Teddy Roosevelt