You Can’t Steer a Parked Car
One of my intentions this year is to make more decisions more quickly, to take action, and to fail forward. After all, you can’t steer a parked car.
Default Over-Researching and Indecision
To say the least, this has not historically been my approach. I typically over-research, over-prepare, and make sure I’m absolutely qualified before I act. I’m the girl whose dad would spend hours (with saint-like patience) in the same store as I painstakingly went back and forth deciding which three-dollar vacation souvenir to purchase. I’m the Business School graduate who reviewed the group paper just one more time to make sure I hadn’t missed any grammatical errors the first five times I read it through.
There are absolutely ways my researching, preparing, deliberating, weighing all the pros and cons, attention to detail, and asking other – “more knowledgeable” -- people has served me. In recent years, however, I’ve also become painstakingly aware how much I’ve held myself back with my need to make the “right” decision and not make a mistake.
No more.
What I’m Practicing Instead
I haven’t failed when something doesn’t go well; I’ve learned something. By deciding or taking action, I gain valuable data – I learn what worked or didn’t, and how I feel about it. This brings me closer to figuring out what I want and how to get there. Without making decisions or taking action, I remain stuck in the same place with no new information.
While I’m sitting there weighing the pros and cons and debating my next move, someone else has already made a decision, acted on it, made a mistake, and learned from it.
The way out of confusion is decision and action.
If I fail at something, all it means is that I failed at the thing. It doesn’t mean that I am a failure.
Information becomes powerful when you act on it.
Consider that there isn’t more safety in not making decisions. Not taking action is not insurance against regret. Regret often comes from stagnation and inaction.
If I want to increase my rate of success, I must increase my rate of failure.
I can be the authority figure in my own life! I can have my own answers. There are so many benefits to looking inward for guidance instead of only looking to outside “experts.”
Have my own back when the decisions I make don’t go as I’d hoped. If I beat myself up for a decision I’ve made, I’m going to stop making decisions.
I’m learning, folks. I’m making decisions, I’m taking action, I’m making mistakes, and I’m also having so. many. wins.