Article by Dan Rockwell @leadershipfreak on Twitter

Waiting is the reason life hasn’t changed.

Waiting seldom takes you where you want to go. You aren’t where you hoped because you haven’t taken steps to get there; you’ve waited.

The path to disappointment and dissatisfaction is paved with waiting.

Why we wait:

1. Expecting giant leaps.
2. Rejecting incremental progress.
3. Forgetting that certainty is a myth. Needing it stagnates.
4. Letting obstacles obscure goals.
5. Hoping others would help but they didn’t.
6. Feeling alone.
7. Feeling incompetent.
8. Belief that things will eventually improve.
9. Fear of losing what you currently have.
10. The present isn’t painful enough, yet.

Start stepping toward something new when:

1. The present is acceptable but not satisfying.
2. Challenges have slipped into easy rhythms.
3. Boredom sets in.
4. New opportunities emerge.

How to stop waiting:

1. Project yourself into an unchanged future. If nothing changes will you be fulfilled ten years from now?
2. Realize nothing will change until you change it. Don’t wait for others to create the “right” conditions.
3. Spend a day writing down every dissatisfying element of your life.
4. Cross off everything on your dissatisfaction list that others control.
5. Prioritize the items you control starting with the most dissatisfying.
6. Focus on items in the middle of your list. Don’t start with the biggest, baddest items.
7. Take small steps toward something new.
8. Stop letting uncertainty about the “best” future prevent from pursuing a “better” future. Better comes before best so go for better.
9. Take steps that open more doors than they close, at least in the beginning. There may come a point when closing doors is the more important than opening new ones.
10. Pat yourself on the back.

Four Words:

Stop Waiting – Take Steps.