If You Haven't Taken Action Yet, It's Never Happening

How to Know If Your Plan Is Actually Just a Fantasy

You have a plan for something that is going to change the world.

It's going to be amazing. People will fall all over themselves to get behind it.

Someday.

What have you done about it so far?

Thought about it?

Read books about it?

Created a vision board?

Let me be brutally honest with you. You don't have a plan, you have a dream. And it's never going to happen.

You see, it's impossible to plan everything out in advance. Life is always going to throw you a curveball you don't expect.

The only way to find out what you need to do is to start doing it.

An amazing new business

I met someone once -- a friend of my husband's. This friend met us for coffee and talked at length about his plan for an amazing new business.

My husband was excited about the potential.

I simply asked, "How long have you been planning this?"

He'd been working on the plan for over 3 years.

It was never going to be anything more than a plan. Or he'd have done something already.

A little reassurance is okay

I understand that it's scary to start something new. It's reassuring to take a course or read a guidebook, because then you're not doing it alone.

When I started writing online, I took a course. And then I started writing online. 

My online writing now looks nothing at all like the writing I started with. I just needed a little confidence boost to get started. Then real-world feedback helped me develop.

When I determined that I wanted to become a coach and a healer, I spent time investigating different healing modalities. When I learned enough about a modality to be minimally proficient, I tested it.

Could I heal myself? Of anything? Could I heal my husband?

If not, it wasn’t for me. I didn't waste more time on that modality and moved on to the next.

When I found one that worked for me, and that produced immediate, noticeable results, I got certified to use that modality.

I'm pursuing advanced certification, so that I can create and run group healing sessions. But in the meantime, I'm already working with people 1-on-1. By the time I’m certified to lead groups, I’ll have refined and honed my skills through many, many hours of individual sessions.

Plan or dream recap

In 3 years: I made over a thousand dollars writing for Medium. I had my writing included in two self-help books. I did real-world testing of four different healing modalities. I selected a modality and achieved certification of it. I performed healing sessions as part of that certification protocol. I took on private clients and helped them.

In 3 years, my husband's friend: Planned.

You see the difference?

Some projects need more planning

Now, there are things that require extensive planning. If you're planning a multi-million-dollar construction project, you need to have an architect's drawings, you need to apply for building permits, and you need to line up both the equipment and the crew. All of these things take time.

However, they are still concrete investments of time and money with specific deliverables.

A big construction project could take a decade or more to get off the ground. But during that decade, they're not simply "planning". They're creating models, presenting to potential backers, announcing the plan and getting community feedback, and securing necessary permits.

Some actions are being taken. Always.

Or it's not a plan. It's a dream.

A Plan Is a Wish Your Actions Make

Life is not a Disney movie. You can't count on a Fairy Godmother magically turning your dream into reality.

You need to take action.

And keep taking action.

Until you have transformed the world.

PS - If you're taking action, but not getting the results you want, you might be suffering from a block. Let's chat.

Top 3 Blocks Dissolved This Week

1. Feeling taken advantage of - resolved “if I complain, I’ll be punished”

2. Difficulty selling - resolved “it’s shameful to sell to people who know you”

3. Feeling Resignation - resolved “everything is hopeless”

If you look for inspirational quotations about taking action, you’ll find many along the lines of Wayne Gretsky’s famous, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” They mainly talk about the downside of not taking action, as if people had never considered that before.

That’s why I like the following quote from John F. Kennedy. It recognizes that there are risks and downsides to both action and inaction. The reason most people fail to take action is because they perceive the costs of action as likely and severe, while the costs of inaction are unlikely or smaller.

This is a particular type of mistaken reasoning. Humans feel the loss of something we already have (such as spending money) far more strongly than the loss of something we do not yet have (such as lost future income). We weight our decisions to preserve what we have, at the cost of what we could have had in the future.

When you realize the true cost is the loss of your dreams, you’ll see that it makes sense to take prudent risks. Minimize the costs of action where you can. But above all, take action.

To your dreams!

Jennifer Dunne, Caribbean Compassion Coaching