Time for Action: If Not Now-When?
Riddle Me This, Riddle Me That: Five frogs are sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off. How many are left?
If your first answer to the question is one, you would be wrong. The correct answer is five. You and I know, there is a big difference between deciding to do something and acting on it. Day after day, many of us fail to follow through on crucial decisions and best laid plans and remain on various logs in our personal and professional lives. Deciding to something does not equate to taking the required action. And from time to time, our inability to act undermines our progress and success in important areas of our lives. So are you one of the five frogs sitting on the log?
If you are struggling to act on your important decisions and plans, you’re not alone. Research suggests that every year, up to 70 percent of people who make new year resolutions in January, lose their resolve by March of that same year. And according to the statistics, “Of those that made a resolution in 2020, 35% kept all their resolutions, 49% kept some of their resolutions, and only 16% failed at keeping any of their resolutions. So, what is standing in the way of you following through and actively pursuing your goals and dreams?
Common Reasons Why People Fail to Act?
There is no one reason to explain why people fail to act on their decisions. Like the frogs sitting on the log, the reasoning behind an individual’s failure to act, or follow through with their expressed intentions and plans, can be explained by any one or combination of the following factors.
The Law of Diminishing Intent
According to the Law of Diminishing Intent, “The longer you wait to do something you should do now, the greater the odds that you will never actually do it.” For example, if you decided to take vacation and travel this year, but took no action to request the time off or buy your tickets by a certain time, that vacation is less likely to happen. Whether your decision or plan is to travel, go back to school, change careers, or make a big move, when you act is crucial. Nonetheless, many people use waiting for the “right timing” to justify not acting. And before you know it, days turns into a week, weeks into months, months into years and later regrets that they never did what they planned to.
So, is there ever a right time? That is, the perfect set of conditions for you to launch that new business, start that home project, expand the family, write that book, overhaul your finances, or make that lifestyle change to improve your health? Probably not. The last few years of the pandemic forced both individuals and organizations to pivot and adapt as the world as we knew changed. Whether we liked it or not, were ready or not, most of us were forced to learn new skills, adjust to new technologies, processes, and systems.
Many of us had to figure out how to work effectively and productively from home and to conduct business, serve customers, attend church, and school online. And we even had to get creative about keeping connected and celebrating holidays, milestones while socially distancing. If anything, we learned that “time waits for no man” and the true meaning of “carpe diem or “seize the day”.
Fear of Failure
Another reason why people fail to act in the direction of their dreams and goals is the “fear of failure”. At some point or another, we have all had to grapple with the fear of failure and to take big leaps of faith to overcome it. But for some people, the fear of failure is a bigger and potentially crippling emotion. According to the University of Kentucky, the “ irrational and extreme fear of failing or facing uncertainty is a phobia known as atychiphobia. And this “irrational fear of failure (caused by a traumatic event or experience) can make a person doubt one’s abilities and believe that they are not good enough to try new things.
In extreme cases, atychiphobia keeps a person stuck within their comfort zone and prevents them from moving forward in life. Regardless of whether the fear of failure is mild or extreme (phobia), if not managed, it has the potential to prevent you from achieving your personal and professional goals or making progress towards having a meaningful and fulfilling life.
Analysis Paralysis
A third explanation for why people fail to act on the decisions they make is analysis paralysis. This is where you spend a great deal of time thinking about a decision to be made, researching to gather information on your options, weighing the benefits and risks, asking for additional advice to inform your decision and still fail to act. While analysis paralysis might be motivated by a strong desire to make the right choice, the decision making and planning process will yield nothing, if you do nothing. Overthinking a decision does nothing to move you forward. Instead, it can lead to further procrastination, self-doubt, and create the impression of acting but doing nothing at all.
Perfectionism + Procrastination
Like paralysis analysis, the twin combo of perfectionism and procrastination also prevent people from acting on their goals. According to Healthline, “people with perfectionism hold themselves to impossibly high standards and think what they do is never good enough.” This causes them to procrastinate and delay acting while they try to make every perfect. In so doing, the small imperfect efforts to just get started and the gradual improvements that can be achieved overtime are dismissed or overlooked as not good enough. To avoid procrastination and perfectionism, acknowledge that you might not have all you think you need. Recognize that sometimes all you truly need to get started, is what you have. Don’t allow doubt (your and others) about your abilities to keep from taking action.
Time for Action
In the final analysis, people make decisions on big and small issues and fail to act on them every day. Decisions mean nothing without action, and acting requires courage and conviction. Since history does not reveal its alternatives, you will never know what your failure to act might cost you in the long run, or what life changing opportunities you gave up as a result. Sometimes the best opportunities, are hidden beneath the cloak of wrong timing, not being the most qualified and not having all the money or support you need. By taking a leap of faith, you might come to realize how talented, resilient, resourceful, strong and creative you are.
So, back to the frogs on the log in the riddle — what decision or plan have you been sitting on? When will you jump? And if not now, when will you take action to leap toward your goals?
Until next time, Remember, ItsALearningLife!
