From a quote in a business magazine, the CEO of the company Cisco said that, without exception, all of the large mistakes he made in his career came as a result of moving too slowly. This could have been in relation to making decisions, taking action, trying out an idea, communicating with another person, testing a new plan, or any other item that is time-based. His quote sends a strong message to those that want to swiftly improve, since in all his years of building businesses and dealing with company-members, he said that his most consequential mistakes came from taking action late.
Good Ideas Are Fleeting
An idea comes to your mind. It tends to only be an appealing idea because your mind tells you it is currently advantageous to put it to use. If you act on it within your local time frame, these advantages usually materialize and rewards follow. However, if you take that idea, and then drag out action on it over an extended time frame, working on it in small bits each time, the advantages that would have come from doing so early on may then no longer be present.
Cut Off Slow Movement
This leads to the next point, which is: if you see yourself progressing through an action too slowly, cut it off right there, because you are not naturally motivated to perform it, and it may end up becoming one of your largest mistakes. If someone told you you could avoid a huge mistake in your efforts, you would probably be glad for the foresight. This foresight is present in your own thoughts once you recognize the signals of a problematic procedure.
Implementation Is Key
If one person has ten great ideas and implements none of them, and another person only has one great idea and implements it, the person who actually implemented the one idea will obtain rewards, even though the other person had an abundance of ideas. In the same way, it is better to be a person progressing quickly through an idea that won’t actually work out, than to be a person barely progressing on a fantastic process. The person progressing quickly through a failure of an idea will learn what the problems were much sooner, and is more likely to find a successful path.
Only Two Successful Options
Let’s say you see yourself moving very slowly on some action. You only have two options that bring you positive results. One is to quit the action, and switch to one that you can start flying through. The other option is to change your attitude or habit towards the action, in order to bring about moving results. If there isn’t always something new coming up, you are probably moving too slowly. One might say that another option is to leave things as they are, but that option leads down the path of time thrown out the window.
Keeping Your Thinking Ability Up To Par
The mind is meant to be continually processing new attempts, environmental conditions, and social plans. If a reasonably large risk isn’t being processed at some time, it is likely that some thoughts need to be rearranged so that priorities are back in order. A mind that is left unused while moving slowly through a project is a mind that will be hard to kick back into high-processing gear when you want to return to past levels of effort.
Example: Conference Call Idea
As an example, let’s say you have an idea to get five certain people together in a conference call, in order to record a group discussion that you will then release. At first, this idea is exciting to you because it would put you in a positive position. Here are some possibilities that could occur if you move too slowly in bringing the idea to reality:
1. another person gets the idea, and implements it before you, making your version seem like a copy-cat effort
2. your idea starts to seem old and ill-fitting with changing times
3. you get into a disagreement with one of the five people so that there would be no way he would participate, and the idea no longer has value with just the other four taking part
4. your motivation diminishes as you have kept putting off the effort, and end up questioning your own thinking of it as a good idea
5. an important change occurs in your life that makes this plan no longer appealing
Reason after reason will pop up to cut off a project if it is moved upon too slowly. You can use this information to either cut off a project that would end up mainly wasting time, or to remind yourself to keep it steadily moving along the way, so that the problems of stagnancy don’t start to show up.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I think this lines up with your “You Aren’t Too Late for Anything” post really well. Action is the number one way to garner success. If you don’t keep up with a rhythm, then you’ll lose your edge and blunt your skills. I think forming good habits is always a better solution then, say, taking drastic action and then falling back into old ways.
Corey: I think that you are right in that it does match up with that post. They could be connected in that a person isn’t too late for anything as long as they don’t take action too slowly at this current time. On your point about keeping up a rhythm, it is a huge deal to not take a habit/routine for granted. We think we have complete control of our routine, and then get used to it, but the minute the routine is not honored and continued as it has been, it can crumble quickly. A routine is only a helpful force if it is maintained like a plant being watered.