Recently someone asked me, ‘how do you find a balance between learning and taking action in your business?’ This is something that I used to struggle with. My thinking on this subject has shifted completely. I used to think that knowledge was power and that the way to become successful was to learn as much as possible. For years, I spent so much time trying to learn everything I could about business, reading books, taking classes. The problem was that I wasn’t taking action. I was afraid to take action because I was afraid of failing, so I focused on learning, but results come from taking action.
Results come from taking action
The truth is that you can only get results by taking action. You can spend all the time in the world learning about an investment, but you won’t see results until you actually invest. It’s important to do your due diligence, but at some point you need to take action. Either invest or decide not to and find a new opportunity. You can think about your next step, strategize it, plan it, etc. But you won’t move forward until you actually take the step. It might be the wrong step, but taking your next step is critical to making progress and getting results. If you listen to anyone who is successful, they will often say, ‘I’ve made every mistake’. They are successful because of their mistakes, not in spite of them.
Overeducated underachiever
When you focus on learning and never take action, you become an overeducated underachiever. You become someone who knows a lot, but doesn’t have the results to show for it. We have been conditioned to believe that ‘knowledge is power’. This may have been more true when knowledge was scarce and hard to come by. Now we have access to more information than ever. The real power comes from finding the specific knowledge you need and taking action. Knowledge is only power when it enables you to take specific actions to get the results you want. You can learn all you want, but results come from taking action.
Prioritize Action over Learning
This might sound backwards to many people, but the truth is that you should focus on learning things that will allow you to take better actions to get the results you want. Don’t just learn for the sake of learning. Focus on learning the specific skills and strategies you need to get the result you want. It all starts with figuring out what you want, coming up with a plan to get what you want and then taking action. Many people just gain knowledge without having a good reason to gain it and without ever implementing the knowledge they acquire.
Failure is the best teacher
If you want a specific result in life; to lose weight, start a business, find a life partner, etc. It is better to take the wrong action than to spend all your time trying to learn about what to do. The action you take won’t be a random action and you aren’t trying to make a mistake. You are taking action based on your own intuition or someone else’s advice. You will find that there is a gap between your understanding of the situation and your knowledge about what to do. The only way to close that gap is to try something, notice the result and they adjust your approach. You must fail first in order to get the result you want. The fear of failure is what stops people from taking action. They focus on learning as a way to procrastinate taking action.
Fail forward
The only way to make progress is to take action. By taking action, you learn what actually works and what doesn’t work. Learning can help you to take better actions and to be more effective, but knowledge without action is just trivia. I used to love trivia. I loved knowing random things, but after knowing a lot and not getting results, my focus now is on taking action. I still love to learn, but I try to be more strategic in my learning and embrace mistakes. The key is to learn from your mistakes. Often you learn so much more from your own mistakes than from books. Books are incredibly valuable, they allow us to learn from other people’s mistakes, but the power and desired results come from taking action.
Take some action today
If you want to start your own business, the most important thing is to take action. If you already know what you need to do, then stop procrastinating and take action. If you aren’t sure what to do, start by thinking about what you want. What is the outcome you are looking for? What specific knowledge do you need to get that outcome. Where can you get that specific knowledge? What action can you take right now? If you aren’t sure where to start, then find a good training program. The best program that I have found is the Entre Blueprint. It will give you a better understanding of the best options available today and the best knowledge and skills to focus on. You can apply below.
