The Mistake People Make: Planning vs, Taking Action

There are people when they talk and plan, we notice a difference because of their mindset and way of doing things smartly. But there are some mistakes they make, and they won’t realise it.
The mistake is about making planning looks like taking action. They both seem like movement or doing something, but they are different.

Denzel Washington- You can run through the house but get nowhere.

Planning & Action
When in planning, you are taking steps to process and learning. These are important, but action is far more important. When you take action it gives you an actual result.

Just like I plan my weeks.

• This week, I will write 10 articles, Code 5 functionality in my app. If I write articles and code then push them to their respective destinations, then I took the action. The process/planning is saying I want to do something, but the action of pushing the articles and codes to the right places give me the result.

• I want to reduce 2 Kg from my body weight this week. This is good planning, taking the action for the result is a different thing.

The process is always useful because it is the starting point, but it will never hand you anything. No matter how you talk about eating healthy, if you do not take the action of buying and eating the foods, you will never get a result.

Why people practice more planning instead of taking action?

Planning is essential, and sometimes we feel we need to learn more, but more often than needed. Planning makes us feel like we are doing something even without taking actions. I have found myself in the past planning for things and never take action about it. All I do is, pick up a pen, write stuff, check the internet to know about them and after a while, I found myself not doing anything. I have over 20 beautiful business ideas that could thrive in my side of the world that I have abandoned because I feared failure.

So, one reason is the fear of criticism and failure. Yeah, it doesn’t feel good to fail, but this is the fundamental reason most people plan for so long before taking any form of action.

Taking Action
There are several ways to take action at the right time, but all encapsulated in two ways.

1. Pick a date to move from process to action.

Before I start my Typeearn project back then on Steem, I had much thought and how to make the project make proper sense. I haven’t seen that kind of concept before and it seems like I need to think deep. I crafted out some plans; I said to myself, this will be a proof of concept. Whatever happens, I will learn and take it to the next level. I and the rest of my team built and launched. I was expecting so many criticisms, but all I got on the introduction post were all positive feedback. It surprised me. After a while, I started getting some criticism, and these are the process I got to learn more. I applied more. Many people used bots to mine the token, and I learned through the actions.
So, you could say, I will plan on this through this period and I will take the action through this period. Every failure is just a chance to learn more.

2. Plan and set the time for your action

There are basic actions you could take with no hindrances. You could say, every Mondays and Fridays, I will publish a post. Every Tuesdays, I will build a functionality on my app. Every Saturday, I will spend 4 hours in the gym. The time is the process and the movement to get these things done are the actions.

Never mistake activity for achievement. — John Wooden

Many people perceive activities for achievement. They say, I have been planning and working on this thing for 3 weeks, but they never take it to the place of action. Planning is good but they don’t give a result; action does. However, it is important to plan before taking any action.

Know the time to act.