If you want to accomplish anything in life, you can’t just sit back and hope it will happen. You’ve got to make it happen. — Chuck Norris, actor

It’s amazing how many people glue themselves to home plate by over analyzing, over planning, and over organizing, when what they really need to do is take action. The truth is, nothing happens until you take action.

Ready, fire, aim… this is not the typical protocol; you were expecting “Ready, Aim, Fire”, however most people spend way too much time getting ready, aiming… and never get around to firing. Get ready, then just fire — then assess your outcome, get feedback… adjust your aim, and fire again. Once you’re in the game and you’re getting feedback, you can continue to make adjustments until you get the result you want.

The truth is, nothing happens until you take action. It’s easy to spend years on the launch pad trying to get the trajectory just right, but sometimes we just need to take off and get going. So we can adjust our course, as we get feedback. We must be moving in order to move forward.

When you get started, you trigger all kinds of helpful things. You’ll start getting valuable feedback, and you learn new skills, you’ll gain experience, and you’ll show those around you that you’re serious about achieving your goals. As a result, people will wake up and start paying attention to you. Things that were once confusing, will start to become clear. Things that appear difficult to become easier. You begin to attract others, who will support and encourage you.

Talk is cheap — you can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do. — Henry Ford, Entrepreneur and founder of the Ford Motor Company.

Winners are action oriented… the one thing that seems to separate winners from loser. More than anything else, is that winners take action. They simply get up and do what has to be done. Once the plan is developed, they start. They get in motion. Even if they don’t start perfectly, they learn from their mistakes, make corrections, and continue to take action until they finally produced a result they want.

A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

If we expand this concept, I would add, “and there really is no such thing as a “perfect plan.” The world is always changing, and as a result, or techniques will need to change as well. So just get started… you can adapt your approach as you move along.”

We’re covering a lot in this book and workshop; how to create a vision, set goals, anticipate obstacles, believing yourself, persevere, and visualize and affirm your success. Now it’s time to put it all into action. Get a mentor, write down your goals, and read them at least twice each day. Then fill out and submit that college application, start that savings plan, ask that special person out on a date, or book a trip to Europe! Life won’t get any better until action is taken.

If you do the things you need to do when you need to do them, then someday. You can do the things you want to do when you want to do them. — Zig Zigler, Motivational speaker and author.

You want to be in the restaurant business? Go get a job in a restaurant and start learning the business. You want to be a chef? Great! Enroll in a cooking school. Take action and get started — today! You do not have to know everything to get going. Just get in the game. You will learn daily.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m a big proponent of education, training, and skill building. If you need more training, then go get. Sign up for a class or that workshop now. You may need a coach or a mentor to get you where you want to go. If so, then go get one. If you’re afraid, so what? Feel the fear and do it anyway. The key is just to get started. Quit waiting until you are perfectly ready. You never will be.

I started out my career as an entrepreneur in the car stereo business. I didn’t know anything about how to run a successful business, I just knew I wanted the freedom to call the shots, use my creativity, and serve the customer. I was far from the perfect business owner on my first day of operation. I had a lot to learn about inventory control, marketing strategy, how will avoid getting conned by a slick salesmen, how to confront pushy vendors, and how to motivate employees. But I started anyway. And it was in the process of running the business that I learned all of those and many other things.

Most of life is on-the-job training. Some of the most important things can only be learned in the process of doing it. You do something and get feedback — about what works and what doesn’t. If you don’t do anything for fear of doing it wrong, poorly, or badly, you never get any feedback, and therefore, you never get to improve.

When I started my next business in Atlanta, Georgia, I went to a local bank to get a loan. I knew I needed a business plan but I didn’t know what criteria the loan officer would require. So I did the best I could and took it to the bank. They told me there were a bunch of holes in my plan. I asked what they were, and they told me. I went back and rewrote the plan, filling me in the areas I had left out and filling in more detail where they were unclear or unpersuasive. I then went back to the bank. They said the plan was good, but they decided to pass on it. I asked the loan officer who he thought might be willing to fund the plan. They provided me the names of several bankers in the area they thought might be interested. Again, I went to each of the banks and presented my business plan. Each one gave me more feedback until I had honed the plan and my presentation to the point where I did find someone interested, but he wanted collateral to secure the loan. I asked everyone I knew and then some to get a backer who would be willing to put up the collateral to no avail. I never did get the loan, but I did learn a whole lot about the process.

You, too, have to begin — from wherever you are — to start taking actions that will get you to where you want to be.

Just get started now, learn and implement The Success Principles for Teens in your life, enroll in The Success Principles Plus!™ Workshop today! Don’t put it off!

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. – Chinese Proverb

It is interesting to realize there are 137 words that contain the root word ‘action’. Do you think we as a culture value action? Of course we do, no change of current conditions would ever occur without someone taking action. In fact, according to Merriam-Webster, they define ‘action’ as ‘a thing done; an act of will; the accomplishment of a thing, usually over a period of time. For instance, ‘satisfaction’; the Latin root ‘satis’ means “enough”. Therefore, enough action ultimately produces ‘satisfaction’. Following this logic, you will never be satisfied until you take a lot of action!

Although we all appear different on the surface, underneath it all, we are all driven by a set of universal primal needs. It is why we do, what we do. We are all driven by our Six Human Needs – fundamental drives with each one of us — that compel us forward in a quest to experience a life of meaning. There is no conscious effort necessary, our will to satisfy these primal needs is automatic.

The Four Primal Needs

1. CERTAINTY – Everyone wants stability about their basic necessities — food, shelter, and other material resources. When people cannot control their physical circumstances, they may seek certainty through a state of mind (such as religious faith or a positive outlook).
2. UNCERTAINTY/VARIETY – People have a need to change their state of mind, to exercise their body and their emotions. Therefore they seek variety through a number of means — new stimuli, change of scenery, physical activity, mood swings, entertainment, food, etc.
3. SIGNIFICANCE – Everybody needs to feel special and important in some way. People will seek significance through obtaining recognition from others or from themselves. When people feel insignificant, they may make themselves feel significant by getting angry or taking aggressive action toward others. They may also meet their needs paradoxically, by having others recognize the significance of their insignificance or the size and complexity of their problems. It’s important to remember that for many, helplessness is power.
4. CONNECTION – Humans need to feel connected with someone or something — a person, an ideal, a value, a habit, or a sense of identity. Connections may take the form of love, or merely of intense engagement — for instance, one can feel connected by means of an aggressive interaction.

The Two Spiritual Needs

1. GROWTH – Everything in the universe is either growing or dying — there is no third alternative. People are not spiritually satisfied unless their capacities are expanding.
2. CONTRIBUTION – Just as people cannot survive without others contributing in some way to their welfare (no baby grew up on its own), they cannot be spiritually fulfilled unless they are contributing to others as well.

To get yourself or  your teen on the proven path to success to learning and implementing The Success Principles for Teens in your life, enroll in The Success Principles Plus!™ Workshop today!  If not now, when?