‘Activationist vs. Passivationist’, or the Road to Turning Desires into Reality
There’s *one thing* that studying successful people teaches us…
Chances are, you’ve heard the saying, “There’s plenty of room at the top.”
As it turns out, there really is.
This has been repeatedly expressed by top leaders in business, management, and general self-help books for decades.
And it remains very much relevant today.
There is a shortage of top-flight, expertly qualified people to fill key positions.
Most big jobs — whether it be running an early-stage start-up or multinational corporation, government, military, high-level selling, or taking control your own life’s fate — demand people who aren’t just good at delegating tasks over to others.
After all, you can’t just leave everything up to the ‘Big Guy’ upstairs to determine how your life will play out.
It requires someone who thinks in terms of “action.”
Having excellent ideas isn’t enough. A fair idea that’s acted upon and developed, regardless of what other people think of it, is 100% better than a terrific idea that dies because it isn’t followed up.
“Nothing comes merely by thinking about it.” — John Wanamaker
Studying the success stories of successful people teaches us one thing
Reading the (auto)biographies of successful people shows us there are essentially two types of individuals.
“The successful are active, we’ll call them activationists,” David J. Shwartz explains in ‘The Magic of Thinking Big’, “while the just average, unsuccessful are passive. We’ll call them passivationists.”
Mrs. Activationist (Mrs. A.) isn’t just a thinker, she’s a doer. She takes action, gets stuff done, and follows through on her ideas with concrete plans.
She doesn’t allow herself to feel worried about what might happen.
Mr. Passivationist (Mr. P.), on the other hand, is a “don’ter”. He postpones doing things, for he has found reasons to rationalize why they could not be done.
He allows himself to become mentally paralyzed by worrying too much about what might happen.
Let’s dive a little deeper. 🤔
Mrs. A. decides she’ll start meditating and write for 30 minutes every morning to get her thoughts straight, and she does. Mr. P. also thinks it’s a good idea, but keeps “forgetting” and finds reasons not to go through with it (too hungry, not much to write about today, not enough time before work, etc.)
Pre-COVID, Mrs. A. would plan a vacation, and take it. Mr. P. would plan a vacation, and postpone it until “next year”, when he’ll have more time.
Mrs. A. wants to start saving to invest in the stock market, and she does. She doesn’t have a whole lot to save, so she starts with small increments, knowing that what matters more is getting into the habit of saving, not how much she saves. Mr. P. waits until he earns more money to start saving.
Mrs. A. wants to go into business for herself, and she does. Mr. P. also wants to build his own business, and discovers all the “good” reasons why he shouldn’t.
Mrs. A., after spending many of her formative professional years specialized in one field, decides she wants to take up a new line of work in a different industry, and she does. The same idea occurs to Mr. P., also in his late thirties, who debates himself out of doing anything about it.
Do any of these sound familiar?
They sure did to me.
When looking back on many of the ideas I had saved in my Evernote or deep in my brain, I wondered, “What did I waste all this time on?”
A good idea, if not acted upon, produces terrible psychological pain.
From Desire to Reality #1: You can’t predict all the obstacles, but expect there to be many
Every venture presents risks, problems, and uncertainties.
Every successful leader has learned invaluable lessons from their past failures and challenges, but no one has ever learned anything from not doing anything (other than the fact that, well, you have to do something.)
You can’t plan a road trip from one end of a country to the other by forecasting every possible road block and obstacle you’ll find along the way (e.g. unexpected storm, road deviation, etc.)
You can plan to eliminate as many risks as you can think of, but you can’t eliminate all risks.
From Desire to Reality #2: When problems do arise, face them head-on
No good things ever come to someone who sweeps their problems under the rug, hoping that with time, they’ll eventually work themselves out.
The real test of a successful person isn’t to eliminate all risks; it’s our ability to find solutions to difficulties when we encounter them — not to avoid them.
Don’t let your dishes pile up.
As written in yesterday’s article, “the only cure for fear is action.”
Dread making a phone call? Make it, and the dread will disappear. Put it off, and it will be harder and harder to make.
Dread doing your medical checkup? Go, and your worry vanishes. Chances are nothing’s serious, unless you keep on putting it off until you might actually have a serious illness.
“Your job as a leader is not to control the outcome ; you’re not in charge of luck. It’s to make good decisions that you do not regret making, regardless of the outcome.” — Seth Godin
From Desire to Reality #3: Plan out your vision for where you want to be, but realize that NOW is the word of success
Tomorrow, next week, later, someday are synonyms for never.
More often than not, we trap ourselves in our wanting to get ready to take action, to the point where we get distracted by other tasks and end up putting our original one off.
There’s only so much we can “research” on Google or spend time reading books.
Nothing will happen unless we take action.
Unless we talk to people about our ideas.
Unless we hold ourselves accountable for the success we envision for ourselves — no one else will do it for us.
They have their own success to worry about.
Allow yourself to feel excited about the challenging road ahead of you. Be a crusader on a mission to success.
Seize the initiative, gear in gear, and start now. 🚀
“The easy road often becomes hard, and the hard road often becomes easy.” — Robert Kiyosaki
