“There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, ‘Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,’ and an optimist who says, ‘Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.’ Either way, nothing happens.”
-Yvon Chouinard
When it comes to growth - our careers, our goals, our health - it’s helpful to think in terms of two primary buckets, thinking and acting.
Thinking is the process of gaining clarity over what we’re trying to actually accomplish. It’s asking ourselves good questions. It’s getting clear on the what and the why. It’s understanding what the next best action is to take.
Ideally, thinking leads to enough clarity. Enough to get started. Enough to take the next step. Enough, in short, to act.
But we all know where this goes off the rails.
It’s when taking action is replaced by endless thinking. We just need one more detail. Or one more idea. Or we need to reach X before we do Y. And without fail, neither X nor Y ever comes to fruition.
Why does this happen?
Because thinking can feel a lot like taking action.
We get that little dopamine hit from thinking about a compelling future, and instead of using that as a nudge to take action, we come back to the dopamine like a moth to a flame. But this flame doesn’t kill us. Instead, it just keeps us in a perpetual state of wanting some future without moving directionally toward it.
This isn’t to say that action is the only thing that matters.
Some people are wired the opposite way. They have a propensity for taking action, but prefer to not spend much time gaining clarity over where they should be directing that action. In the wake tends to be a lot of wasted effort, ideas and projects that have been killed, and frustration.
But when you can strike a balance between the two?
That’s the sweet spot. That’s when we become a sniper.
It’s when we know who we are, where we’re headed, and why.
It’s when the days get more fluid, because the target is clear and we move in silence to execute it.
It’s when we decide, then act.
And when we have that?
We’re actively creating the best version of ourselves.
Whenever you’re ready, there’s two ways I can help you:
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