![\"Confused](\"https:\/\/simpleprogrammer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/nothing.jpg\")
<\/a>\\n\\nIf you are completely honest with yourself, you\u2019ll probably find that some of the biggest, most important questions you have, you already know the answer to.\\n\\nYou already know what you should do. You might be a bit unsure of your answer, you might feel like you need to think about things more or get some more opinions, but deep down, inside, when you really look hard, you already know the answer.\\n\\nSo, why don\u2019t you just do what you need to do?\\n\\nGood question.\\n\\nIn fact, if you just started doing what you know you should be doing right now, if you would just take action, you\u2019d have a much better life, a more successful career, and you\u2019d probably be a lot healthier as well.\\n\\nAt some level we all know this is true, yet we have such a difficult time doing what we are supposed to do.\\n\\nAgain, the question is why.\\n\\n<\/p>\nUncertainty<\/h2>\n
\\n\\nThere are many different whys<\/em>, but I think it usually starts with the problem of uncertainty. We can do our best to make a decision, but we can\u2019t ever really know for sure if we are right\u2014at least not till we take some action and move forward.\\n\\nI get a lot of software developers asking me how to improve their career or whether or not they should invest their time in a particular technology or platform. Most of the time these software developers already know the answer to these questions, but they are unsure of the answers they have come up with. They are looking for an outside party to validate what they already know. They are looking for me to bring some certainty to this uncertain world.\\n\\nUnfortunately, I can\u2019t. I mean, sure, I can tell you that I think learning mobile development is a good idea and that the approach you have planned out sounds reasonable. But, I can\u2019t know for sure. Neither can you.\\n\\nLife is too complicated to know for sure that some choice or path will lead to success\u2014even if we imagine that we can define exactly what success is\u2014which is more difficult than it sounds. The truth is that you might have to go down many paths to eventually find success. You might have to make a lot of mistakes and fail many times before you find the correct path.\\n\\nAnd\u2014that itself isn\u2019t even accurate. What I actually mean is that the correct path has to be carved out. It doesn\u2019t exist yet. <\/strong>You can\u2019t see far enough ahead of you now to even know what the path looks like. As you walk the path, as you encounter and overcome obstacles, as you make slight course corrections and change directions, you discover and create the path at the same time.\\n\\n<\/p>\n \\n\\nNow, some of us are held back by more than just uncertainty. Sometimes you know exactly what you should be doing, what action you should take, but you just don\u2019t want to do it.\\n\\nMost often when we are stopped by this barrier, we call it procrastination. We don\u2019t just say we aren\u2019t going to do what we know we should be doing, but instead we put it off until later. Your mind has a much easier time saying \u201cI\u2019ll do it tomorrow\u201d than admitting that you have no intention of doing something\u2014especially when you know it needs to be done.\\n\\n(For a good book that can help you get past this habit, check out: <\/em>Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time<\/em><\/a>)<\/em>\\n\\nOften the correct path is the difficult one. You might find yourself holding out for a simpler solution; waiting for someone else to blaze a path for you; to cut down the overgrowth with their machete and to build a nice smooth road for you to travel.\\n\\n \\n\\nAnd let\u2019s not forget the fear of failure. The reason why I hesitated so much to write the first few sentences of this post is because I thought it might suck. I still do. As I am typing this very sentence, I am tempted to highlight all the text above and push delete.\\n\\nWhat finally got me to start writing? Well, I decided that I need to get a post done for this week and that no post is ever going to be as good as I want it to be, but that doesn\u2019t matter. What matters is that I do something. Sure, this post might suck, but I\u2019ve decided I am ok with that. What I am not ok with is doing nothing. I\u2019m not ok with sitting here in this coffee shop browsing Facebook while I think about the perfect post to write and exactly how to word it. I\u2019m not ok with letting a Monday go by that I don\u2019t have a blog post to publish, because I\u2019m too afraid to take action.\\n\\nPerhaps that is where you are today. Perhaps you know what you should do, you are even willing to do it, but you are just so afraid of doing it and failing that you sit at your desk paralyzed with fear. If that describes your current situation, I want you to consider something: what is the cost of not acting?\\n\\n<\/p>\n \\n\\nWhat will certainly happen if you take no action at all? Think carefully about what the consequences of failure are versus the consequences of stagnation. Would it be better to do something and have it turn out less than you expected than it would be to do nothing at all?\\n\\nSure, in a few cases it is actually better to do nothing than to risk a critical failure. But, if we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that those instances are pretty rare. In almost all cases it is much more beneficial to take some kind of action\u2014even if it results in failure\u2014than to do nothing at all.\\n\\nBesides, usually when we fail we learn something\u2014often, it is the only way to learn something or to make any progress. If we aren\u2019t willing to embrace a few failures, take it on the chin a few times, we\u2019ll never advance. You don\u2019t become a world-class boxer without being punched in the face a few times.\\n\\nSo, bottom line is: if you are wondering what you should do with your life, if you are questioning what you should do with your career or what programming language you should learn, don\u2019t ask me\u2026 ask yourself.<\/strong> But, don\u2019t just ask yourself, actually take action and do something. Don\u2019t worry if what you do ends up being wrong. Just don\u2019t sit idle and let opportunity pass you by. I\u2019ve made a lot of mistakes in my career. I\u2019d say I bat at perhaps 25% on average. But, at the risk of sounding clich\u00e9, I miss 100% of the shots I don\u2019t take.\\n\\nHey, did you like this post? Want to take some action right now? Join the Simple Programmer community by clicking here<\/a> and you\u2019ll be part of a community of over 5,000 other software developers who want to improve their careers and their lives by taking a holistic approach to software development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On any given day my inbox is full of emails from software developers asking me for advice on all kinds of topics. Even though many of these questions are unique, I\u2019ve found that many of the emails have one root, all-encompassing solution: taking action.\\n\\n Most people never actually do anything with their lives. \\n\\nMost people…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14560,4909,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-career","category-psychology","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nResistance<\/h2>\n
<\/a>\\n\\nThe reality of the situation though is that there is no one coming to rescue you and give you a simple solution. In fact, the brush may become more overgrown the longer you wait to take action.\\n\\nGrowth is often uncomfortable. Action that leads to growth can be quite painful. When I go into the gym in the morning and lift a heavy weight, it doesn\u2019t exactly feel good. When I sit down to write a long blog post, it doesn\u2019t feel that great either. It\u2019s a bit painful to do something that will improve you or advance you in some way. Don\u2019t waste your effort trying to avoid the pain, just face it head on and realize it is the only path to growth.\\n\\n<\/p>\nFailure<\/h2>\n
The cost of doing nothing<\/h2>\n