Just Think, Don’t Act?
Why “taking action” is bad advice…
Introduction
One of the biggest misconceptions about success is that successful people “take action”. Accordingly, one should not dwell so much on one’s thoughts but rather do.
To a certain extent this is true….
Think again!
However, if you don’t have a clue yet — and that is the case in most cases — you should rather think again. And once you act, you should act in such a way that you get the most knowledge out of it.
That means it should be done in a structured way.
What do I mean by that?
By setting the process based on how other people used to do something, we can see where we can improve ourselves.
But it’s not always very easy to see…
For example, writers on Medium are successful, but we don’t see what else they do — other than write lots of articles. Writing a lot isn’t everything after all.
It needs structure.
Reverse Engineering refers to the process of extracting the design elements from an existing finished system or a mostly industrially manufactured product by examining the structures, states and behaviors. Thus, a plan is created again from the finished object.
This gives us the structure of how this project is put together. We learn what we would have to do to create the same product. In life it is similar — but not 100% the same.
Because there are far more steps necessary that we can’t see.
Luck is also part of it.
That an article goes viral and thus brings more followers is a matter of luck. No one can predict the algorithm 100%. Not even if you have already been successful.
You could take an educated guess….
But that’s based on analyzing data, understanding context, thinking about what others have done and what works for them.
Because even that doesn’t necessarily work for you.
Incompetent people overestimate their competence and, fail to grasp the discrepancy between their performance and what is desirable. They see no need to learn or improve. — Eva Keiffenheim
Conclusion
If you want to cut down a tree, you will spend time sharpening the axe. However, if you had thought about it, you might have thought that a chainsaw would be better.
Therefore, you’d better think about it again….
Education does not come from reading,
but from thinking about what you read.
— Carl Hilty
