Don’t Wait to Act! April 2007
When asked their age, children tend to round up to the nearest year or half year. “I’m almost four,” they’ll say with pride. Young children dream of being a “big kid” and play act as such. We wonder why they rush to grow up, yet contained in their play acting there’s a valid learning style. This learning style is also present in great individuals and we can adopt it.
Young children learn mostly through observation and mimicry. They “play” school, house, etc., based on what they’ve seen and heard. Experiential play is how they learn to be an adult, a mommy or daddy, a professional. Occasionally this method of learning helps them change their mind when they realize, through play acting, that they don’t want that particular career. Whatever their decision, they learn by acting “as if” they are already in that particular job or are that particular person.
Many books tout the importance of being in the moment. This great advice allows us to focus on what is right in front of us. Being able to live and think as if a future goal is already reality is also a great skill to have. We’ve noticed that great individuals have this ability. They act as if they’ve already attained the goal they seek. We note that “forethought” is defined in the American Heritage College Dictionary as “deliberation, consideration, or planning beforehand. Preparation or thought for the future.” We’d like to differentiate this characteristic of acting as if a future goal has already been achieved by naming it “foreaction.”
Foreaction serves to jump-start the achievement of any goal or greatness project. Once we’ve established the goal, e.g. owning our own business, we begin acting as if we already own our own business. Foreacting swiftly affects the way we perceive the world. We’re more open to opportunities and pitfalls. In our example, we would think as a business owner rather than a person hoping to be a business owner. Foreacting helps clarify what we look at and how we decide our next steps.
We grow more confident as we foreact because living out our dream, goal or greatness project allows us to experience goal completion. We carry ourselves differently because we’re living in the reality of our achieved goal. Rather than approaching the goal tentatively, we convey confidence.
Finally, foreaction creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. When we already believe we’ve achieved our goal, we tend to identify and take the necessary steps for success instead of just thinking about them. This acting-believing-living process propels our hesitation into action, our hope into belief and our distant goal into our current reality.
A learning pattern that allows children to develop at an amazing rate is also present in great individuals who do not wait until a goal is reached to live and act differently. Foreaction is a skill we can cultivate to propel us toward our goals and help us achieve them more quickly.
The Greatness ProjectTM is researched and written by:
Scott Asalone & Jan Sparrow
Copyright © ASGMC, Inc. 2007
Foreaction involves identifying a goal and then realizing how you would feel, think and act if the goal were realized. Below are few questions to help you cultivate this discipline.
1. Identify a specific goal you would like to achieve.
(For those who are committed to being a Greatness Project use that goal)
2. How would you feel if you achieved this goal? How would those feelings manifest every day?
3. How would you act if you had achieved this goal? What would be different in your daily life?
4. What would change about how to see yourself in the world if you achieved this goal?
5. How can you act/believe/live differently right now to would reflect what you hope to achieve?