The Myth Of āTaking Actionā
Itās become a clicheā¦
āJust take massive action, brah!ā
I hear it all the time from gurus on social media.
And theyāre not wrong.
But whatās often overlooked is that thereās 2 types of āaction.ā
CONSUMPTION.
Andā¦
PRODUCTION.
Consumption includes things like reading, watching, listening.
While production is stuff like planning, writing, editing, recording, publishing, designing, building, teaching, creating.
Now, thereās nothing inherently wrong with consuming. Itās a necessary ingredient to success. And if youāre consuming good stuff — both mentally and physically — then itās going to amplify the productive actions youāre taking.
But too often, I see folks lean in the wrong direction.
Their ratio is way off.
…Especially when their business is small and struggling to get off the ground.
And herein lies the problem:
Too many folks think that a lack of knowledge is whatās holding them back.
They donāt have all the answers yet. So they convince themselves that they gotta invest a lot of time to learn, learn, LEARN.
And as a result, they spend most of their time:
- Reading books / articles / emails
- Watching courses / webinars
- Listening to podcasts / audiobooks
- Overanalyzing business metrics
And while learning is important, what theyāre not doing is putting what they just learned into practice by:
- Planning the steps needed to achieve their goals
- Developing content and copy
- Creating SOPs & processes for repetitive tasks
- Training employees and delegating projects
- Outreach for JV partnerships or high-ticket sales
Now, as someone who publishes consumable content for a living, itās not exactly in my best interest to expose this issue.
But if you want real results, you gotta produce more than you consume.
In fact, Iād say that at a minimum, you should spend 4 hours producing for every hour you spend consuming.
And when your business is in the early stages itās even more important. If thatās the case, you should even consider making that ratio closer to 90/10.
Cause when I see folks strugglingā¦
Itās almost never because theyāre not consuming enough.
Itās cause theyāre not producing enough.
Donāt let that happen to you.
Your pen pal,
Matt Rizvi