It’s Time To Stop Planning
I am a voracious reader. Anyone who knows me can vouch for this. Hell, I have a blog where 80% of content is dedicated to books. I make no apologies for this. Reading is my favorite pastime. I am an avid consumer of content and a planner extraordinaire. There is no plan that I cannot map out, no to-do list I cannot add to. While that’s all fine and dandy, even I must admit there is a limit.
We can find ourselves consuming so much content that we get information overload. Information overload can do two things: galvanize us into action or intimidate us so much that we become stuck. The latter happened to me.
I realized that I was spending so much time reading and seemingly “learning” that I wasn’t doing. There has to be a balance, or at the very least I needed to prioritize. Yes, I must constantly learn but I must also evolve. Action has to marry the lessons in order for any evolution to take place. Faith without work is dead. You know this, I know this, but even so, I almost let it get the best of me.
If I want to freelance writing to be a viable side hustle, I need to start pitching publications and building a solid writing portfolio through this blog and other entities. If I want to study photography, I need to take a class or find someone that I can shadow for a set period of time.
If you want to become the next great food blogger who eventually hosts your own TV show, you better start cooking and creating new recipes on a daily basis. If you want to go to graduate school, you need to start studying for the GRE.
I can fill up the pages of a planner and journal in record time with to-do lists a mile long, but that’s busywork. What I really need are actionable steps. What is the one-year goal? Write that down and then back track to the present in order to create an effective timeline. Planning is great and a necessary step but in order to be effective, there must be action. Reading numerous resources and books is all fine and dandy, but how will I apply and implement the lessons I’ve read about and learned?
At a certain point, we must stop just reading about other people’s lives and create our own success stories. Write the damn book. Move out of the damn business. Start the damn business. Make a move.
I don’t want to rewrite the same plans a thousand different ways, I want to celebrate the successes I’ve had based on the work that I’ve put in, and then build on that to accomplish what’s next. Constantly planning and reading is like keeping the car in park when I need to get to work. In order to get my office on weekdays, I must make that 45-minute drive, and that can only happen when I get behind the wheel and put the car in drive. It’s time to put down the book and flipping the pages of my planner. The work needs to be done, and it needs to be done right now.
Background Photo: CreateHER Stock
Natalya is the author of All The Things I Never Said, a soul-stirring collection of short stories, prose and love letters for the soulful wanderers, the brokenhearted and the hopeless romantics.
You can follow her rantings and occasional sparks of brilliance on Twitter @NatalyaMuncuff.
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