Ready! Fire! Aim! How to Stop Procrastinating and Start Making Progress

But if we stay stopped, if we never take a step forward, well then we never move forward.

We never get any closer to our goals.

And that's what we're trying to avoid.

Welcome to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and I'm excited to welcome you inside.

This is the kind of place where your glass will never be anything other than half full because we choose to focus on the positive side of life.

Now, this doesn't mean that we shy away from the real talk.

No, not a chance.

Matter of fact, we explore all aspects of life.

From the good, the bad, and the ugly.

But all of that is done with one purpose.

One purpose.

To inspire you to never give up on life.

Even when it may seem like life has given up on you.

Now I get it, life is hard.

But starting today, you've got grit, grace, and inspiration.

Why hello and welcome back to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowell, and well, I'm excited to have you here today.

This is episode 164, in which I am diving into a topic that I believe is pretty darn important because I believe it's a topic that is holding a lot of people back in life.

And that is the failure to take action.

For some reason, I believe we are a society of planners.

Now, I understand that a lot of people may not think that they're a planner because they like to just jet off on a vacation spur of the moment.

They don't think twice, they just go and do.

Okay, awesome.

But how many people do you know, maybe you included, who plan out things forever?

You overthink what could go wrong.

You try to figure out the best way to do it, whether it's planning a vacation, whether it's planning out a new project, or maybe it's something big, like you dreaming about starting a business.

Maybe that's the way we talk about it.

It's not just plans, but dreams.

And we spend so long dreaming about those dreams, planning about those plans.

And one thing happens.

Nothing.

Nothing happens.

Because nothing happens if we don't take action.

And that is what today is all about is encouraging you to take action in your everyday life, to take action on your dreams, to take action on those ideas.

And well, that's because I want you to have the things that you've been dreaming about, the things that you've been thinking about.

And I don't want you to get stuck in the planning process and never move forward.

Now I have one easy to remember idea that's gonna tie this all together just perfect.

I would love to take credit for it, but well, I heard it the first time from a buddy of mine, Adam, over at Podcasting Business School.

And he taught about the idea of throwing out this idea that we're supposed to ready, aim, fire.

And instead, ready, fire, aim.

I'll get into the details of what I'm talking about later on in the episode.

But just keep that in the back of your mind.

I want you to focus on ready, fire, aim.

Now, directly related to today's topic is my free 30-day ultimate spring challenge.

This event is designed to have you stepping outside of your comfort zone, have you discovering maybe who you truly are, and ultimately leading you to discover what really matters.

It's a whole lot of fun mixed with a little bit of personal growth, a little self-improvement, all done through some simple daily action items that, as we go back to, I'm going to be having you take action on each day during the 30-day challenge as we kick off the first 30 days of spring.

It all kicks off on March 20th, but doors are open now for you to get signed up.

So head on over to let'shangout.live.

That is let'shangout.live to get signed up today.

A link will be inside of today's show notes.

All right, so on topic, what's the big deal about planning, anyways?

Why am I so against planning?

Well, there's actually nothing wrong with planning.

Matter of fact, I believe planning is a key part of success.

But what the problem is, is how much time you're spending on planning.

Because, as I said, yes, I do agree that we all need to do a certain amount of planning.

It's good to have a plan in place.

But sometimes I find that we get so caught up in the planning that we never take action.

We do the research, we research it to death, whether it's a trip or whether it's a home improvement project, or maybe it's building a new website for the business.

We go on YouTube, we go on Google, and we search and we search and we search and we try to figure out all the different ways to do it.

What's the best places to go?

Where's the best places to eat?

What's the best way to go to get there?

Or what's the best platform to host my website on?

Who's the best person to have build my website?

All the things.

And all we do is we sit there and we research and we research and we plan and we plan.

And at the end of the day, nothing happens.

And that's because when we do that, we're literally paralyzed by our own research, by our own planning.

Nothing happens.

And that's not the point.

That's not the point of living.

And that's certainly not what you had intended when you first had that idea, first had that dream.

The dream wasn't to get to spend the rest of your life planning and researching.

No, the dream was to do the thing.

And so that's what I'm talking about when I talk about the problem with planning, is the time spent planning.

So remember, do some planning, do some research, but it needs to be limited because if you do too much of it, you get too caught up in the weeds, you get too deep in the analysis, then nothing happens.

And that's not what we want.

So then I guess you could say the next logical question is well, what's so beneficial about taking action?

Well, basically, by taking action, that means we're gonna get what we wanted in the first place.

When we take action, even imperfect action, it leads to results.

Now, here's the ticket.

I said imperfect action.

And that is because sometimes the action we take, it moves us forward, but maybe we miss the mark a little bit.

Well, that's all right.

Now we can readjust, we can reconfigure, and we can keep moving forward.

But at least we have that forward moving momentum.

And when we start moving forward and we start gaining momentum, then we become unstoppable.

But if we stay stopped, if we never take a step forward, well, then we never move forward.

We never get any closer to our goals.

And that's what we're trying to avoid.

Now, the other thing about taking action, it's gonna build your confidence.

Because the more actions you take, the more times that you step outside of your comfort zone.

Well, it builds your confidence.

It builds on who you are, it lets you experience more and more, which in turn is going to, I believe, make you a bigger, better, stronger, more resilient person.

I think a perfect way to illustrate this is say that you and your friend both want to start a business.

Your friend goes ahead, does a little bit of planning, and then says, you know what, I'm just gonna go for it.

And they dive right in.

You, on the other hand, you start doing the research.

You get on Google, you start watching YouTube videos, you get in that rabbit hole that never ends.

And so you just keep searching and searching.

Meanwhile, thinking, oh my gosh, my friend is totally, they've just lost their mind.

What are they thinking?

They haven't even done the necessary research, but they do it and they take the leap and they launch.

And even if that launch is not completely perfect, they launch.

And you start to see, hey, wow, they're actually making some money.

No, maybe it's not amazing, but they're doing it, they're doing the thing, they're experiencing life while you are still just stuck on the computer researching it all.

Here's the secret to sum this all up.

Taking action, even if it's imperfect, is the key to progress.

And that's ultimately going to lead to success.

Now, I mentioned earlier about my approach that I wanted you to keep in mind of that being too ready, fire, aim rather than ready, aim, fire.

What this is in reference to is that we should take action first and then make adjustments.

Instead of spending all that time aiming and aiming and aiming and never actually firing, instead, we ready, we fire, then we adjust.

We see how close we hit the bullseye, and we readjust.

And then we ready fire again.

So basically, think of it like this the approach to ready, aim, fire is the planner, the person who won't get off Google, the person who will not take action.

You don't want to be that person.

Instead, you want to be the maverick.

You want to be the one who ready, fire, aims, and you start moving forward, gaining momentum, getting things done because you take action.

Now, with everything in life, there's barriers that are gonna come up.

Things are gonna happen, things aren't gonna go quite the way we had hoped, but that's okay.

That's the part of the experience.

And so along this journey, you do need to be ready, prepared to overcome the barriers.

So while the safe and easy option is to do nothing, is to keep planning and realizing that, well, if I don't actually take action, then nothing bad can happen.

I don't have to put myself out there.

I don't have to get uncomfortable.

Well, that's true.

But then nothing happens.

Instead, you put yourself out there, you take the action, and you run into some roadblocks, you hit some barriers, some obstacles.

Well, that's okay.

As long as you know that they're most likely going to creep up, then you can be better equipped to handle them when they do.

Now, these obstacles, these barriers, they're not always actual physical barriers either.

A lot of times they're mental.

It's things like fear, self-doubt, procrastination.

Those are some of the ones that I'm talking about.

But then there's also the other actual physical roadblocks that stand in the way.

And that's where I believe you need to have a group to do it with.

A group of people, a group of friends who you can count on.

Or maybe you go out and get a coach, somebody who can be your guide, helping you along the way with whatever it is.

Another way is not to get lost back in the whole planning aspect of things, but instead actually just kind of setting some goals, having some benchmarks to go off of.

That's going to help to keep you accountable, help you moving forward, making forward progress.

That's what it's all about.

And like I said, I think my biggest tip here is to be sure that you have a support system, that you have a group of friends, or that you've joined maybe a group on Facebook of people doing whatever it is that you're trying to do.

There's a group on Facebook for literally everything, just like my ultimate spring challenge.

So basically, that's it.

It's my encouragement to you to no longer be paralyzed by the fear, to no longer be stopped by the worry, and no longer to be stalled out because you're just planning and you're thinking about things and you're never actually taking action.

Because without action, there are no results.

And I want you to have the results.

I want you to have the success.

I want you to have your dreams become reality.

So embrace this new idea of a ready fire aim and get out there, take the first step, make the next move, and ultimately take on the day, of course, with the podcast Grit Grace and Inspiration.

I hope you've enjoyed today's episode.

Don't forget to head on over to let'shangout.live.

That is let'shangout.live to sign up for the 30-day ultimate spring challenge.

What a kickstart that will be to the spring.

So head on over to let'shangout.live.

And uh hey, I'll see you over there.

Until next time, this is Kevin Lowe with Great Race and Inspiration.

Have an incredible day.

Hey, real quick before you go, I have one last thought to leave you with.

I of course hope that you've enjoyed today's episode, but more importantly, I want to remind you that I never want you to listen to an episode of this podcast to hear something that I have to say or that my guest has to share and think, wow, I wish I could be like them.

I wish I could overcome my own challenges and do the great things that they are doing, but I just can't.

Well, friend, that's where you're wrong.

You are capable, you are able, and you darn sure are deserving of having all that you can imagine in this life.

There's nothing special about me or any guests I have on this podcast.

We are all just normal people trying to make it in this life.

And so I encourage you to take a look at yourself in the mirror and remind yourself that you know what?

I can do it too.

Now, of course, if you would like help along that way, reach out to me.

Whether that's as a listener of this podcast, a friend, or if you'd like to work with me as a coach.

My contact information is inside of every episode's show notes, just like this one.

So go down, check out my contact information, and reach out to me today.

With that said, I encourage you to take on the day every day with great, grace, and inspiration.