Are You an Action Taker?

I’m a big believer in investing in your business through continuing education and mentorship.  But sometimes you have to take everything you’ve read, watched, and learned, and put it into action.  All that education without implementing what you’ve learned isn’t going to make you successful.  I’ve made that mistake plenty of times.

At first glance, that seems pretty obvious, but is it really?

If you spend all of your time gaining new skills, that doesn’t leave much time to take action.  We all only have 24 hours in a day.  You have to be stingy with your time, carefully choosing the best ways to work on your business.

I am not at all saying that you shouldn’t spend any time furthering your business education.  Far from it.  The online world changes so quickly, if you didn’t spend any time honing your skills you would quickly fall behind.

But you have to put what you learn into practice.  After all, practice makes perfect.  Over time, you will be able to spend more time testing your skills and less time reading and learning.

How to Learn in the Beginning

The biggest learning curve in understanding the ins and outs of your business is at the very beginning.

You’re excited about your new venture but you have to learn everything about running your business at the same time.  There are a ton of moving parts, which can make the learning process more than a little bit stressful.  At times, you might wish there was a fast forward button that could take you straight to the “good parts”.

Start by looking for blogs, books, and products created by those who are experts in your niche.

I strongly suggest finding a good mentor.  They can help to dramatically speed up the learning process and reduce the amount of mistakes from the start.

One community I have found that includes an amazing number of resources and is run by experts in the online world is this one.  If you’re looking for an inexpensive way to get access to people who know what they’re doing and TONS of resources, check it out.

As you get going, things will start to make more sense.  It might seem overwhelming, but if you’re at that stage right now, I promise it will get better with time.  Start small and learn enough to allow you to start implementing things in your business.

Stay focused.  Learn, implement, and repeat.  If you start learning too many things all at once, you’ll never get anywhere with your business.

I’ve made that mistake before.  I spent so much time learning everything that I could about SE, but burned myself out and didn’t implement any of it for a long time.  I’ve since learned to better pace myself and have seen drastic improvements in my business.

How to Practice in the Beginning

If you’ve been learning about your business up until now, but haven’t taken any action, why not?  There’s no better time to start implementing what you’ve learned than right now.  It doesn’t matter whether you’ve only been in learning mode for a short time or for years, now is the time to claim your success.

Even if you’re scared, a lot of learning is going to come from simply getting out there and trying new things.

Gathering the Right Kind of Information

Part of focusing your learning so that you can take more action is gathering the right kind of information.

What you’re learning should be directly related to your business goals.  There is so much information out there that it’s easy to become distracted with everything that is available.  I received some amazing advice from someone who’s been doing this for a long time.  She says that you should try to never purchase anything that you aren’t going to use within 30 days.

Filter through everything you’ve gathered and focus on only the most relevant information.  Don’t feel like you’re taking shortcuts by not reading every blog, article or course on your topic.

Keeping Your Focus

I’ve mentioned how important it is for you to keep focus.  Try not to jump from one topic to the next.

This was one of the hardest things that I dealt with when I was first starting out.  I was still trying to figure out what I was doing.  I wanted to learn everything about everything.  I guess I suffered from Shiny Ball Syndrome.  Once I got focused on what I wanted to focus on and implement, things got so much easier!

Taking Action

The only way that you can be successful is by taking action.  Learning is an important part of the process, but it’s only the beginning.  Implementing what you’ve learned is what will lead to those big important changes.  Even if you don’t know 100% of what you’re doing, do something, even if it’s small.  You’ll never know everything there is to know and you can always make changes.

Those Who Take Action Are the Ones Who Succeed

If you look at the people who are truly successful, it is in large part because they have taken action.

The Difference Between Info-Gathering And Action Taking Is…

Hopefully you can see the difference.  Keep yourself accountable as to whether or not you are truly taking action or you are just gathering information.

Remember:  Learn. Implement. Repeat.

This is one of the most vital elements to your success, so please take it to heart.

The more action you take, the more successful you will be.