Reservations kill commitment.
Our ability to plan, to envision, to forecast and to plot a course through complex circumstances is second-to-none.
But once you’ve decided on a course of action and the time has arrived to move forward, we do ourselves no favours if we hold back.
The voice in our head that whispers about a better way, a different way, or a safer path forward might well be right…
But that doesn’t matter.
The time to deliberate and choose a new course of action isn’t when we’re in the thick of things.
We do this thinking in advance – insofar as can – to avoid the all-too-human tendency of talking ourselves out of committed advancement.
As capable as we are at envisioning the way ahead, we’re bad at imagining what our journey will be like during the tougher parts.
The parts where we’ll feel like giving up.
The points along the curve where our conscious mind will be grasping for any reason to retreat back to the the safety & comfort of the familiar rather than pushing into uncharted territory.
There are countless reasons not to do the thing.
That’s always the case.
Do any of them matter?
It’s hard to say.
One thing we can say is that a snap decision made in a moment can have long-lasting consequences.
Just as the decision to continue keeps us moving forward, the decision to relent places us on a different path:
One where we’ll either spiral back to the mean, or shoot off in a new direction entirely…
Probably not one we’ll like.
The most steadfast commitment is nothing more than a continuous decision to remain.
Months or years of dedicated action can be undone in the blink of an eye. We might not see the results at first, but under the surface, things are happening. We just don’t know it until we see it first-hand.
That said, it’s not just complete changes of course that lead us astray.
Given enough time, our unchecked reservations can do just as much damage.
The urge to pull back – to do less, to worry more, to refrain, to avoid the risk of leaning too far into something – is our silent partner on the road to nowhere.
The point here isn’t to do more & burn ourselves out utterly in the process. Everything warrants appropriate effort… and “appropriate” is subjective.
What we don’t want is to do less than we want to. Than we know we should. Because anything less than what’s required is a waste.
When the time comes to act, we’re best served if we leave our reservations at the door.
Insufficient action creates inadequate results. There’s only so much we can learn from outcomes generated by operating at less than our full potential.
Take the thinking time upfront, sure. But save all the pondering and reflection (the mind’s tools for keeping us in our comfort zone) for pauses along the way.
No matter where we’re headed, unreserved action will get us there faster & easier than we’ll ever achieve otherwise.