Stairway to Success: The Complete Blueprint for Personal and Professional Achievement

PRELUDE TO STEP FIVE

NOTHING HAPPENSUNTIL YOU ACT

He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin!

—HORACE

The time comes when you must put your dreams and plans into action. You know where you want to go. You’ve set goals to lead you to your destination. You’ve developed strategies for attaining your goals. You’ve acquired the motivation. It’s time to go.

The execution of your game plan is not a straight-line process. It’s a spiral. The formula is this:

1. Act. Look at your life as a picture you’re painting. When you begin painting a picture, you first form a mental image of what you want the finished painting to look like. That’s your vision. Then you decide on the order in which you will paint the various elements of the picture. That’s planning. Then you begin putting colors on the canvas. That’s action. You never know just what effect the colors will produce until you see them on the canvas. Chances are, your initial effort won’t produce the picture you envisioned, but you’ll never know how different it is until you see the actual colors on the canvas.   It’s that way when you begin moving toward your goals. You act. You can’t be sure that your actions will have the desired results, but you’ll never find out until you’ve acted.
2. Learn. When you’ve started painting your picture, you look at the colors on the canvas and compare them with the picture you’ve visualized. Is this what you envisioned? Is it better than what you envisioned? Is it worse? If so, what did you do ...