Action Breeds Clarity

Photo by Justin Medina on Unsplash

I don't remember where I heard this, but I love the saying "Action breeds clarity."

For me, it's the antidote to analysis paralysis.

How often have you wanted to do something, but found yourself spending too much time thinking/dreaming/wishing about it? Only to see that a week, a month, a year (!) later you're in the same spot?

I've done it.

Usually, it's because of uncertainty. Sometimes inaction is driven by fear of failure, but often that's more a symptom of uncertainty.

For me, I like to have every step known and planned out. Before then, I don't want to do anything. Saying to myself "Action breeds clarity" helps me move forward because it gives me permission to NOT have everything figured out ahead of time. Instead, I focus on doing something small to learn more, which often brings clarity to the bigger picture.

An Example of Small Actions Breeding Clarity

I wanted to create a software product for landlords. But I didn't know what to build, or how to make it.

So I took a small action step.

I called up a couple landlord friends and asked them general questions. "What's something that bothers you? Or that you do over and over and over?" I had a guess but didn't know.

After talking to four people (that's it!), I was surprised that each of them had the EXACT SAME problem. A little bit of clarity.

So I took more action and developed a set of questions to dive deeper on that problem with more people.

Even more clarity.

Eventually, my co-founder and I felt like we had a good sense of the problem. So we took another small action step: I built a small web app in a week to test a potential solution. It was super simple and incomplete but showed the idea and was enough to get clarity on how the final product could work. From there we took another step based on the new set of questions.

I could have spent a year thinking about a product idea and never made progress because of uncertainty. By the way, more original guess was totally wrong. By taking the small act of talking to four people, I gained enough clarity to completely change the direction I headed in.

Action bred clarity.

Take Action

Do you have something you're uncertain about it? Try taking action today.

1. Read more about it.
2. Talk to someone about.
3. Try it in a safe environment.
4. Don't commit to the whole thing, just the next step

Good luck!