Ever wondered when you should quit studying and when you should start doing? Allow me to explain…
I’m a huge fan of ‘continuing education’ for several reasons. First, I love learning (yeah, yeah, I’m a nerd). Second, it’s absolutely vital to any industry you’re in.
I’ve heard it said that life (and business) is a lot like trying to walk up the “DOWN” escalator – you’ve got to keep moving forward just to stay still.
Have you ever tried going up the down escalator? Provided mall security doesn’t yell at you, it’s quite the workout. You’ve really got to keep working just to not end up down one flight of stairs. To get to the top of the stairs? It’s a full-on workout.
All that being said, I think that sometimes we all get a little *too* caught up with making sure we’ve got all of the answers before we dive into trying something new.
It’s time to stop procrastinating – and start DOING.
Before I joined the blogging world, I read a couple of other blogs. And I devoured every piece of advice they gave about blogging – because I’m a nerd who likes to learn and loves to write. I talked to my husband about wanting to blog – and it took several months to get things going. I thought for sure I could know everything I needed to before I took the dive – and I was dead wrong.
Despite all of my studying and reading and scholarly know-how, nothing could’ve prepared me for the actuality of doing. And do you know what taught me more? It was the doing.
I learned more about how to design and run a WordPress-based blog by doing it. I learned more about what kind of writing people like to read by writing things – and seeing what people responded to – than I did by running any sort of analysis in my head. And I definitely learned more about platform building and community outreach by building a community than I did by just watching one grow.
Learning is good – unless it’s holding you back.
Don’t get me wrong – this geeky ginger loves to learn. But if the learning has become your sole focus, it’s time to take a step back and ask yourself some very hard questions.
- Am I so focused on learning to do that I’m not doing it?
- Do I obsess about any incoming learning potential at the cost of my performance?
- How much time am I wasting by not doing this?
[bctt tweet=”Learning is good… unless it’s holding you back! Stop studying and START DOING #IBABloggers” username=”IBAbloggers”]
It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about blogging, health, fitness, child-rearing, cooking, or whatever. If you’re spending all of your time learning – and not practicing or doing what you’re learning – then it’s time to close the books (or browsers). It’s time to go write that blog you’ve been daydreaming about; it’s time to go lift some weights so you can get into the shape you’ve been drooling over, and it’s time to go cook that amazing meal you keep promising yourself.
It’s time to stop dreaming. It’s time to start doing.