16

ACTION!

Dreams can be fact
If you act—
It’s up to you.

—OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II

The time to act is now. You can’t start tomorrow and you can’t start “someday.” “Someday” is usually a euphemism for “never.” So take out your action plan, look at your first goal, analyze your strategy for reaching it, and begin the execution. We learned earlier that all actions are the results of thoughts and feelings. So your first thought should be “What must I do today to make this happen?”

GET THE BALL ROLLING

Milestones are achieved one step at a time. So decide what the first step will be, and take it. Here are some pointers for getting the ball rolling:

Get Sound Advice

Blind action gets you nowhere. You have to know where to direct your efforts and what will be required to see them to completion. So before you act, consult someone who has expertise in the area in which you plan to act.

Let’s say your goal is to become a professional photographer. Your first action might be to set up an appointment with someone who is already a professional photographer and determine what steps you need to take. It may be going to a career day and obtaining all the information you can on the profession.

Lay the Groundwork

You don’t start a house by installing the spiral staircase. You begin by clearing the lot and laying the foundation. If you’re a novice with a camera and your goal is to become a professional photographer, you don’t begin by applying for a photographer’s job with National Geographic. You begin by assembling the resources you need to learn photography.

Basically, you’ll need three types of resources; physical, financial, and human. To achieve your goal to become a photographer, for instance, you’ll need, at a minimum, a camera and some film. These are the physical resources that will start you toward your career.

Purchasing the camera and film will require money. Photography lessons will also require money. You’ll have costs associated with processing the film and producing the photographs. You may want to subscribe to a good photography magazine. You will need financial resources to enable you to afford these things.

To become a good photographer, you’ll need someone to teach you the techniques. This may mean enrolling in a photography course. It may also mean finding a mentor, or at least an established professional who can give you helpful advice. You may need models for your photographs. You may need people to help you find employment to support yourself until you can embark upon your career. These are your human resources.

Take stock of what you now have. Do you already own a camera? Find out whether it’s the kind you can use to develop your expertise. Are you able to afford the classes and equipment? If not, do what is necessary to obtain the necessary finances. Do you know someone who is a professional photographer? If not, take steps to locate someone who knows the business.

Depending upon your answers to these questions, your first action might be any of the following:

• Visit a camera store and select a good camera.
• Start a savings account to accumulate funds for a camera and related equipment.
• Search the want ads for a job to support yourself while you’re acquiring photographic skills.
• Make an appointment with a professional photographer to obtain information on career requirements and prospects.

Whatever your first step is to be, take it today. It may be a small step, but you can’t move toward your goal until you’ve taken it.

Stick to the Timetable

Keep the vision glowing in the back of your mind, and keep your long-range goals in view. But concentrate your efforts on achieving the next immediate goal. Observe the timetable you established in your action plan, and do the things it calls for when it calls for them.

Set weekly goals aimed at carrying you toward your short-term objectives. Then prepare daily to-do lists that will take you toward your weekly goals. Schedule your activities around priorities: What do you need to do next to fulfill the requirements of your action plan?

Some of the things you need to do will be routine, boring, and perhaps even arduous. For example, the real-estate agent lives for the moment of closing, when the buyer pays the seller and the agent collects the commission. But before that can happen, the agent has to canvass the neighborhoods for possible listings, perhaps even going through the telephone directory in search of people with homes for sale. Then comes the advertising, the showing, the qualifying of prospects—all the grunt work that goes into a successful sale.

The successful salesperson does all these mundane things, knowing that the rewards justify the effort. When you’re tempted to skip the necessary but routine tasks, remind yourself of the rewards that lie beyond them, when your vision has become a reality. This will give you the motivation to act, even when you would rather be doing something else.

Don’t Do Everything Yourself

Everything you need to do requires time: either yours or someone else’s. The art of time management is really the art of self-management. You must decide what tasks you can handle more effectively yourself and what tasks are more effectively delegated to others. Delegation is advisable under these circumstances:

• The task to be accomplished is time-consuming but does not require much expertise. In this case, you may conclude that your own time is too valuable to be devoted to the task. Delegate to someone whose time is less valuable than yours.
• The task requires talent or expertise beyond your level. In that case, go to the professionals.

If you’re planning to send out newsletters to prospective clients or patrons, for instance, you might decide that writing the text lies within your area of expertise. But you might choose to go to a commercial printer to assure quality in the finished product. Stuffing the newsletters into envelopes is definitely within your area of expertise, but it is time-consuming and you would be better occupied in other activities. So you might delegate this task to someone else.

Look for Small Successes

Nobody hits a home run every time at bat. And few hit for the distance on their first trip to the plate. It helps build confidence, though, if you can get on base with some regularity.

As you move toward your vision, keep this in mind. It isn’t important that you score a major success at the outset of your venture. It is important, though, that you establish a pattern of success. When you succeed, stop and celebrate. Your subconscious mind can’t distinguish between small successes and large successes. It will perceive each little accomplishment as further evidence that you are a successful person, and will bestow upon you the aura of a winner.

Concentrate on Opportunities

You’ll make more headway by exploiting opportunities than you will by solving problems. Some people spend so much time dealing with petty problems that they never have time to think creatively about opportunities. Learn to recognize and correct problems while they’re still in the proactive stage—that is, before they threaten to become crises. If possible, delegate these problems to others, so that you can concentrate on doing the important things.

Share Your Knowledge and Expertise

Everyone needs help from time to time. Create mutually beneficial relationships with others, making yourself available to help others when your talents and expertise are needed and seeking their help when you need it. Don’t be timid about asking for help. The worst people can say is “no,” which means you’ll be no worse off than if you had never asked.

Never Approach a Task Tentatively

Go into each task with the attitude that there’s no turning back. If you tell yourself, “If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just go back to the way things were,” you’ll always go back to the way things were.

Think Things Through

It always helps to have a “Plan B,” but Plan B should be designed to take you toward the same goal you set for Plan A. You’ll be able to stay with a task for the duration if you think it through before you undertake it. Examine the probable impact of each action you take. Think about how it will affect the goals you’ve set. Try to anticipate the things that might go wrong and develop strategies for dealing with them.

Clear the Decks of Loose Ends

Your life can become so full of loose ends that you’re walking around in a perpetual tangle. Most of us start things and never finish them; we just leave them lying around, promising to pick them up again when we get around to it.

If you want to take purposeful action, rid yourself of this debris. Take a hard look at your unfinished projects and decide which ones will contribute to your vision and which ones are irrelevant. Make the relevant ones a part of your goals, setting deadlines for completing them. Write off the irrelevant ones. Put them in the past and move on to more meaningful activities.

When you start taking action and you see those actions taking you toward your goals, your excitement begins to quicken. You’re on your way! Down the road lies your vision, waiting for you to turn it into reality. Your goals are serving as milestones. Each one takes you closer to your dream. Take them one at a time. If you act in accordance with your plan, you’ll get there.