The Longer You Wait, The Harder You Make It For Yourself
By: Brian Kim - January 9, 2007
Life tends to reward those who are decisive and what I mean by that is those who make decisions quickly and act on them. When people start putting off making decisions or worse yet, make a decision and don’t act on it, what they’re really doing is sitting on a negativity time bomb. The longer you wait until you act, the greater power you give negativity because negativity thrives in indecision and procrastination. The longer you wait, the more chances you have of beginning to think thoughts of why what you decide to do will NOT work. It’s human nature. It’s far easier to think why something won’t work when you give it time. The faster you make a decision and act on it, the faster you start getting feedback and have a tangible starting point to work off of. That’s not to say you shouldn’t have to base your decisions on little or no information, but just enough to make an educated one.
This advice is particularly useful for those who are in the beginning stages of their journey to achieve their goal because they tend to be “idealistic”. It’s easy to think you can easily accomplish your goal in the beginning. I’m not being pessimistic here, just realistic. The longer you wait to start, the more the anticipation of grandeur builds in your mind and when you finally decide to take some action and you see the results, you tend to get crushed. Why? The results did not match the hype that you were building in your mind. Either way, when you wait a while and don’t take action because of negativity or you do wait a while and finally overcome that negativity to take action, you tend to get bad results. The reason why the results don’t match with the expectations you had in your mind in the beginning was probably because you were missing a lot of information and experience that was necessary to get the results you wanted.
For example, take John who wants to lose weight. In his mind, he thinks he knows what he has to do; exercise and eat right. He thinks he knows what he has to do in order to lose weight so he puts it off for some time. His rationalization defense mechanism kicks in and he tells himself if he really wanted to lose weight, he could start anytime (does this excuse sound familiar to those who say they can quit smoking anytime?). Meanwhile, there’s Tom who wants to lose weight as well but he makes the decision and starts right away. A couple weeks pass and Tom is not making that much progress. It turns out that most of the things that Tom thought were true about losing weight were actually false. He was eating the wrong types of food at the wrong time and he was doing the wrong type of exercises as well.
Meanwhile, John finally decides it’s time to lose weight so takes action and at the end of a couple weeks, he looks at the results and becomes dismayed. What happened he asks himself? In his mind, he thought he would’ve lost 10 pounds by now but the results show that he gained 2 pounds! What happens next? He becomes discouraged and quits. Tom on the other hand took action right away and didn’t have time to build high anticipation in his mind like John did. Instead Tom got feedback early on so he as able to work off that starting point and adjust accordingly.
I think one of the most dangerous flaws in human beings is that we think we know it all. We most certainly do not. We tend to think that things are easy, especially in the beginning. We think we know what we need to do, but when we are actually in the thick of things, we tend to find out just how ignorant we really are. So keep that in mind, especially in the beginning. Be humble. Take action now and learn from the mistakes that you know are coming. Don’t be prideful and put things off just because you think you’ll knock it out of the park in the very beginning because I guarantee you that you’ll be in for a rude awakening.
You’ve heard the statistics of an entrepreneur failing several times in starting businesses before he finally makes one successful. Imagine one person who puts off starting his first business for years thinking it’s a piece of pie and then gets totally annihilated when the results come in as opposed to a person who just starts the business without building up that kind of grandeur in his mind. The injuries are less severe when you don’t put yourself high on a pedestal in the beginning stages. Know the fact that you don’t know much in the beginning and instill in yourself an attitude of learning. The worst thing you can do in the beginning is tell yourself that you know it all. You don’t. That’s why there are teachers, mentors, books, tapes, seminars, etc. That’s why you make tons of mistakes in the beginning. It is life’s way of telling you point blank that you don’t know everything there is to know and the sooner you accept this as fact, the faster you’ll start to make progress.
This article may come across as one of a negative tone but that’s certainly not my intention. All I’m saying is simply what the title of the article is saying. The longer you wait, the harder you make it for yourself. On one hand, if you wait, you run the risk of talking yourself out of taking any action due to the negativity that builds up. On the other hand, if you allow pride to get in the way of taking any immediate action, you run the risk of falling flat on your face and quitting immediately when the results don’t match what you had in mind. Don’t let the negativity time bomb go off. Swallow your pride. You can do it; it’s just that you won’t know everything you need in order to do it when you start. There’s a LOT you don’t know in the beginning but if you start quickly enough, you’ll begin to figure it all out.
Don’t wait any longer. Make it easier for yourself and get started today.
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6 Responses to “The Longer You Wait, The Harder You Make It For Yourself”
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January 11th, 2007 at
Well said Brian!
We’re so focused on creating a career, marrying before a certain age, producing our 2.3 kids, doing what’s expected, making money, ticking boxes, doing all the necessary ‘practical life’ stuff, that we gradually and un-intentionally, lose part of ourselves.
Of course we have to make money, pay bills and do all those grown-up things, but for many of us, somewhere along the way we lost the idealist, the dreamer, the optimist and the kid in us, who was always going to do and be something amazing.
If we’re not careful, one day we’ll wake up and we’ll be eighty years old!
Keep up the great writing Brian.
Craig Harper (Melbourne, Australia)
craig@craigharper.com.au
http://www.craigharper.com.au
January 11th, 2007 at
Hi Craig,
Thanks again for your very insightful comments and kind words!
I’ve been reading your articles and it’s clear to me that you were born to motivate and inspire others. Keep up the great writing as well!
Brian
January 12th, 2007 at
Brian,
For those people who believe in the Law of Attraction, your post hits the nail right on the head.
In a nutshell, whenever you receive an inspiration to take action on something, that is the Universe’s way of saying “Go this way. Trust me, it will work out for you in the end!”
It’s a momentary opportunity, though. If you delay, then you miss your chance to go down the success path that has been laid out for you, and then then things that you talk about in this post start happening.
If someone is focusing on something that they really want, and they become inspired to do it NOW, then NOW is when they should do it.
No one ever accomplished anything by just thinking about it!
– Aaron
January 22nd, 2007 at
Hi Brian,
This is a great post. Keep up the great work….I find this is so true…evveryone wants to get it perfect so that when the public sees them they look gand….its all about getting it out there…
Great post
Cheers,
Ash
January 23rd, 2007 at
Aaron,
“No one ever accomplished anything by just thinking about it!”
Well said. Couldn’t agree more!
Ash,
Thanks for the kind words and encouragement! I can tell from your comments that you’ve definitley had experience in this matter. Care to elaborate?
Brian
January 28th, 2007 at
[…] Finally, Brian Kim has written a thoughtful piece on the dangers of putting off pursuing your goals in The Longer You Wait, The Harder You Make It For Yourself. […]