What is the worst decision you have ever made? Sit back and think about it. Now look at the title of this post and think again. What is the worst decision you ever made? Many men will say that they married the wrong woman, or bought that lemon of a car. Yet those aren’t the worst. The worst are the decisions you never made I can guarantee you is the lack of action.
We are results-driven yet we as men are often paralyzed with inaction and this is what holds us back. We indulge in our indecision and get to relax more. That sounds good, yet no it’s not. Inaction is the lack of making a decision one way or the other. That inaction holds you back; it didn’t come to fruition, it simply didn’t get to exist. Because that decision was denied you in fact denied yourself. This is what we’re going to talk about this week: the actions that you don’t take and why you need to get off your tail and start taking action.
Why indecision is bad
Being indecisive is a sign of an ineffective leader. Leaders lead, they make decisions, they often make really quick decisions. they don’t sit there and ignore a problem. Indecisions and not taking action are some of the worst things you can do for yourself, or for your family. Why is ignoring the problem so bad?
Don’t know if it would have worked
The number one reason is that you wouldn’t have known if that solution would have worked. You’re denying yourself the satisfaction of seeing whether it worked or the frustration of it not working. Frustration isn’t bad. It’s simply an emotion. It doesn’t hurt you. Yet many of us men avoid frustration and avoid diving into that problem simply because we decided we didn’t want to face that problem head-on.
Who knows what if it had worked? how would you have felt if it had? That is a question many of us men don’t ask when it comes to something that we decide not to take action on. we deny ourselves the opportunity to have satisfaction. Simply because we are afraid we will be frustrated, angry, upset or some other negative emotion.
So why not try that hard question, that scary question, that hard problem that’s staring you down in the face. Why not address it. Find a solution, in doing so you become a better leader. Whether it’s a good solution or not doesn’t matter. You will improve because you did take action.
You will regret it
There is the old saying
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
And not taking action will generate regret. yeah you’re right it could end badly there is that gamble. I’m not talking about there’s always a danger of failure, yet that danger is not going to kill you. The thought of “what if I had”, will haunt you until you do take that action.
Lack of Growth
Another reason that inaction is not good for you is that it prevents you from growing. Yes, growing is tough. Growing doesn’t feel good at times, but the results of growing are the greatest reward you can have. Yet if you don’t rise to that challenge and try something, anything then you are only short-changing yourself and the possibilities that lie before you.
That growth is needed to become that better man. You need to get rid of the nice guy in your life isn’t going to happen unless you start making decisions and stop trying to hide from problems in your life. Hiding and playing small will not help you in the long run. This is why taking action results in Massive Action.
Lack better skills
With row comes better skills on handling the repeats of those problems you are facing. If you don’t make a decision and see what the results are then you don’t have the skill of knowing whether that action works or not. We are going to fail when we take action, that’s a given. But with those failures come wins. You succeed the more times you try. The Motto try/try again is the best Mantra you can have changing from a nice guy into a man who lives his life on his terms.
Because the skills that you create from taking action allow you to propel your success further. If you want to be successful you have to face the problems that are addressing you. This includes personal problems and business problems. Each time you swing for the fences you increase your chances of hitting a home run. You start realizing when to swing, and when not to swing. you start to recognize when a curveball is about to be thrown at you you start to realize when the fastball is going to start coming at you and you realize how to adjust accordingly.
To improve your life you have to improve your skills. What got you to where you are right now is not going to get you further down the road. If you want to become a successful man you have to take action. you have to make decisions that are sometimes hard. Yes, there might be some significant fallout from the decision you made, but you can say you made that decision. And when you own that dirt you become even better.
What Keeps Us from Making decisions?
Why are you making decisions and taking action so difficult for men, or for anybody really? The answer has many many reasons but it boils down to our thoughts. What we think others will think. what we think that the results will reflect on us. Ultimately our thoughts of what the discomfort is going to be.
Too Much Hassle
One of the problems we have is that we see a problem ahead of us and the decision that we need to make is too much of a hassle. In other words, we want to not step out of her comfort zone. Yeah, you’re right it is comfortable to avoid the problem. Yet that responsibility is a lot like a bull. You can dodge that responsibility time and time again. Yet eventually it will get us in the butt. It is better to go on ahead and face the problem at hand when it arises than to shrug it off until the pain becomes too great. Then you have to face and take the action at that moment. So you have applied more suffering upon yourself by not doing what was needed at the time the problem arose. All because it was too much of a hassle
Uncomfortable Thoughts
Another reason that many people avoid taking action is the thoughts that they have about the problem. Maybe they’d think that it’s too scary. Maybe they think that the action that’s needed is something that is not important. and so they’d choose to not make a choice because having to think and address that discomfort at hand is too much for them.
But I would ask Really?
Indulgent emotions
Yes, we do have emotions that we love to indulge in. Those emotions are things like confusion, uncertainty, and not wanting to know. These types of emotions don’t propel you forward, they hold you back. They just keep playing small, and if you are wanting to live your life on your terms you can’t play small.
Often these indulgent emotions feel reasonable. I mean why would you want to go forward if you’re confused about what to do next maybe you need to have a little more information so that you’re not so uncertain about taking that next action, and the biggest one we love to indulge in is I don’t know and that keeps you from thinking because how are you able to think of anything to do next if you don’t know what to do next? You see, our brain loves to trick ourselves into playing safe. Playing safe means that you are not a danger and our brains do not get killed devices.
Fear
The unknown, the dark foreboding cave, and the spooky-looking forest are all analogies to us just being afraid. It’s hard to do stuff we don’t know the outcome of and we’re afraid of what that outcome can be. That outcome could be a big giant bear or it could be a pile of gold.
The actions that we take may take us to that dark cave and in that dark cave yeah we may find a dragon. This means that we may find a bigger problem that we have to solve. Yet if we beat that Dragon, we get to have the treasures that dragon has amassed.
Fear is that Primary Emotion that is meant to try to keep us safe. Yet it’s not needed near as much as it used to be. This is because we are a lot safer than we used to be. However, the Primal part of our brain still exists. It functions a lot faster and has the means to take control of us. All it has to do is convince the thinking part of the brain to hand over the controls. When it does, our results are more often than not, unfavorable.
These days our fear is more tribal-based. We are afraid we will be exiled from our tribe for having an unfavorable thought. If the actions we take aren’t looked upon favorably then we may have to face the world alone. That is a scary thought to have. so we play safe out of fear that we will be kicked out and will have to take on the Cave Bears by ourselves.
No instant gratification
Another reason that we don’t like to take action is the lack of instant gratification. If we don’t get that instant dopamine hit for doing what we need to, then why Try? That is more often too than not The very reason we don’t even try. If we have to wait for the Results to actually give us that dopamine yet then is the effort really worth it? That answer is yes and often is a better sense of satisfaction because we do hold off
However, in today’s world of social media and instant results, this is a hard challenge for men to get around. You have to have a good reason as to why you want to delay gratification.
Ask yourself this simple question
Ask yourself a really simple question when you are faced with a problem you want to shrug off. What if you did succeed? What if you were able to become the man you want to be? What if your family was proud of you? What is the commonality between those questions? The answer is, What if?
What if, is a question that sparks curiosity. It allows you to start dreaming. It is a powerful motivator. All you have to do is start getting curious and asking yourself what if. What is possible and answer the reasons why. All of these can help you find out how to become better and allow you to take the actions that you’re holding off the decisions you’re not wanting to make because you don’t want to address the what if it turns out in favor of what you want.
Would you be more willing to go through the Pains of learning and developing the skills needed if you could answer that what if? The most successful people are. They see the possibilities they allowed with that Vision. They pursue the what-if to happen in their mind. Then they find out if it’s true. If not then okay they know that answer and I become a smarter man for it.
If you are wanting help to explore that, what if. If you’re wanting help in taking action then go take action by having me coach you through the process. Let’s see what you can do but to do that requires you to take action. Are you, man enough for that?
