"You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."

By Patrick Mahan

Do you plan, prepare, analyze and assess, but then have a hard time pulling the trigger?

It's easy to get stuck in what General George Patton called the "ready, aim, aim, aim" mentality. Or what others have called "analysis paralysis".

This is a pretty cool picture and a good reminder that you don't have to see the whole staircase... sometimes you just have to step out in faith and go for it!

Each step you take reveals the next step. But we all know the first step is the hardest. It often requires that you break out of your comfort zone and overcome the inertia of standing still. The good news is... inertia works both ways. Yes, it's hard to get going, but once you create that initial momentum, then the effort to keep going gets easier and easier.

Think about best-selling authors... earning a spot on the best-seller list is hard. But once they earn the label "best-selling author," then subsequent best-sellers seem to come much easier. James Patterson is a great example. His first manuscript was rejected over 30 times! Now it seems he has a new best-seller every week! But when Patterson submitted his first manuscript, he had no idea that he would become one of the most commercially successful fiction writers of all-time. But it wouldn't have happened had he not taken that first step.

I wrote another blog post based on Zig Ziglar's advice: "You can't wait for all the lights to turn green before heading to town." Both principles are similar and speak to the idea that the "perfect moment" rarely presents itself. If you spend your life waiting for everything to line up just right, then you may be waiting a long time!

So, I'm curious... have you ever done something where you just said, "Hell with it! I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm just gonna go for it!" How did it turn out?

Photo by www.chalkthoughts.com