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Constant action leads to constant progress no matter what the obstacles may be.
It’s been said that the terms of his sentence can imprison a man, and it’s true. To do nothing is an admission of defeat, which in turn becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. One must break through the walls created by excuses and take control of their own life, no interest how small the goals may seem. Constant action leads to continuous progress no matter what the obstacles may be.
“I can’t do it. I’m not smart enough. No one will give me a chance. I don’t have time. My parents won’t let me….”
Every thought, every excuse you tell yourself when faced with a challenge is precisely that: an excuse. A reason to give up, but you still believe it’s true, so how can you overcome it?
The biggest obstacle in your life is the most obvious one. It will help if you start by taking control of yourself. You have to take personal responsibility for the choices that you make. You are free, and you are responsible for your decisions.
One man I know decided that he would be more than just a school dropout; he was going to be a leader in his town and country. He was going to be a Senator. And he was.
He had two strikes against him in his campaign: his town and his species. His tiny village had never produced anything of note, and most of the population was human, elven, or dwarven. The fact that he was nocturnal only made things more interesting. Yet he won.
How? He started by reading everything he could get his hands on, from history books to newspapers and magazines, just about anything that would teach him how the world worked. When he talked to people, he showed them the knowledge he had gained. After a few years of studying how others in his position had held political office, he started putting his thoughts together and beginning to formulate an idea.
By the age of twenty-one, he was well on his way to becoming a natural leader in his country. At the age of thirty-four, he is about to assume the office of Prime Minister in the country by one of the highest unemployment rates in the free world.
If you decide to start and make a difference, then that’s pretty much all you have to do. You take responsibility for what you’ve done so far, what you want to do in the future, and how you can obtain it.
It may sound simple to have the courage to try, but it isn’t. It would help if you had constant action to take advantage of the progress that will come. One major problem is that people don’t see any success when they approach things like this.
How many occasions have you heard someone say, “I’m not going to make it.” Or, “I’m just wasting my time.” How many events have you said to yourself that you can’t do it and then try anyway?
Those attitudes are the worst enemy of those trying to reach a goal and even worse than everyone else telling them their chances. The fact is that they have taken action and are doing what they can. In the beginning, there are small successes and even more significant failures. It’s like a roller coaster.
The first time I knew I had a chance to succeed was when I reached 1600 ELO in chess. But then, once you get one level of success, you must start at zero again to improve it, or else you’ll fall back. I had to see how to manage my emotions and not let a loss stand in my way.
It’s no different from people who lose hope when things don’t go their way, or they are sick in the dumps because they aren’t making progress: they don’t see what is right in front of them! What those who give up “at the first sign of opposition” don’t see is that even though it may seem like it, they are making progress. The fact that they are still where they are, doing what they did, proves that.
The action of doing nothing is still another form of action. It’s not good to always take major leaps and expect great success. If you tend to be conservative, strive for constant progress even if it seems minuscule. It would help if you kept moving forward towards your goal to reach it.