If you have been following along with my last few blogs, you are now in the right mindset and you have become solution focused. Now it is time to do the thing most people stall on or just plain give up on. It is time to take action.
Sometimes we may have a lack of action because we don’t want the accountability put on us. We could have a fear of failure that keeps us from launching. Other times our hesitation to take action is because of a lack of confidence we may have in ourselves. We end up thinking we need to do more research, learn more, finish our degree, become a subject matter expert, get everything just perfect, etc. This term is referred to as analysis paralysis.
We find a lot of excuses for not taking action. This goes back to Dr. Carol Dweck’s Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset. People in the fixed mindset think they are as smart as they can be, are hyper competitive and think failing is just not acceptable. It is easier for them to walk away from something than it is for them to fail.
I saw my oldest boy do this early in school. When he started to feel challenged on some math problems and felt he wasn’t catching on as quickly as he normally did, he would get visibly frustrated, try and blame some external environment issue and would literally walk away and give up. To him, quitting was better than letting his mom and I think he couldn’t do something. He didn’t want to look like a failure to us.
To avoid failing at something, we just don’t start, we push it off, or we just do more research. In football, you fake an injury. The term is loser’s limp. If a defender gets beat on a play, they pull up holding their leg like they pulled a muscle saying that is why they got beat and not because the other person outplayed them.
We can and should learn from our failures. We can learn a lot from trying something and improving upon it as we go. You only truly fail when you quit. The key is to take action!
Even if what you are trying to do is not perfect, take action. Even if you are unsure of how successful it will be, take action. Thomas Edison didn’t invent the lightbulb on the first try. He failed many times before he had the working product. He learned from each setback, and continued to improve each and every time.
As a leader, no action makes us ineffective. Our team will become frustrated if they are needing help, assistance or direction from us and we take too long or never end up helping them. And as our teams mirror their leaders, we then create employees who stop taking action as well.
Remember that inaction is an action in itself, so make sure you are taking the action(s) needed. And if you aren’t taking action because of a fear of change, remember the words from Eddie Veder of Pearl Jam, “I changed by not changing at all.” So I have now removed the excuse for you of “I just don’t like change.” Change happens no matter what so make sure it is from the actions you have chosen.
Be Great….Today!
Brandon Brazeel, MBA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
Chief People Officer
