If there is one simple rule to follow when striving to achieve mastery, I’d say it’s taking imperfect action is better than inaction. People are not inherently bad at what they do, or stuck that way, they just never take enough action to actually gain experience and improve.
No one achieved mastery without going through the trials and tribulations to get there. You show me a successful business owner, professional sports athlete, or an award-winning actor, and I’ll bet they have one thing in common: they took far more imperfect action than the average individual, which led them to mastering their craft.
In this post, I’ll break down how you can harness your own inner power to achieve mastery in whatever it is you want to do, and it starts with an open mind and a little willingness.
The Road To Mastery is Paved With Mini-Tasks not Mistakes
How many Success-Gurus have told you that to attain mastery you have to fail fast and often, that it’s only after making a ton of mistakes that you will find true success. That’s kind of defeating isn’t it?
I look at it a little differently. It’s not about failure or success, mistakes or wins, rather it’s about putting in constant effort to complete a task, then move on to the next task and so on. Success is a constant string of little tasks compounded into what others call “success.”
These “mistakes” are just labels; a program. In reality, when you pursue a goal, you start small, complete it, then move on to something a little bit bigger and more difficult.
True failure comes from a lack of effort or willingness—when you say “I give up” and pursue something else. Or worse, you do nothing, and your life stagnates. I can assure you, any action is better than no action.
See: Why Having No Willpower Is Actually A Superpower
You are a perfectly imperfect being, and nothing in this world will ever be perfect. This is the reason why even those at the top are unsatisfied. Real satisfaction comes from being authentically yourself at every moment.
the Trap of “I Need To Know More”
One of the biggest obstacles when striving to achieve mastery is believing that the amount of knowledge you have is insufficient and you need to know more before you can start taking action.
When this happens, the individual procrastinates the actual work that needs to be done. They fail to realize that no action is an action, and time will start to pass by without anything being achieved.
I experienced this on my first business endeavor; instead of taking imperfect action constantly, I sat there reading self-help books, watching tutorial videos, and day-dreaming of the lifestyle I wanted.
I eventually went broke because I didn’t understand the importance of cash management, I was desirous rather than content, and I simply didn’t take enough imperfect action.
When you think you need to learn more before starting your pursuit towards mastery, what you’re really telling yourself internally is “I don’t know what to do.” And so, you attract nothing in your life.
When you take massive imperfect action, what you’re telling yourself internally is “I know what to do” and that’s when you attract things to you.
Related Reading: Why Living A Simple Life Attracts Wealth And Prosperity
5 Real-World Situations Where Imperfect Action Is Better Than Inaction
These are the top 5 real-world situations I believe people will encounter where taking imperfect action is better than inaction:
1) Getting a Job
The first part of gaining wealth starts with having an income. In other words, get a job!
I know, no one likes applying to jobs, but when you take massive action, you’re only days away from landing something.
A lot of people like to blame the job market being down for why they’re not getting a job, but in reality you just haven’t sent out enough applications or your resume’ needs tweaking.
My go-to method was to send out 20+ applications a day to any industry and any job I was interested in. I didn’t waste time with job boards, instead I went to companies’ career pages directly on their website because I knew most people were not sending applications in through there.
From there I just sent out applications day in and day out. It was only a matter of days before I started getting calls and emails back for interviews.
It’s simple, make a solid resume’, find a list of companies, and apply to any and every job you have even the slightest interest in. If you stick to that streamlined process, you can easily knock out 20 applications in just a few hours.
2) Investing Your Money
Investing your money is the tried and true method to really grow your wealth. If this wasn’t the case, then you wouldn’t have Americans retiring using the wealth they built from their 401(k)s or other investment accounts. Don’t get me started on Social Security…
Because investing money is so important, there is a ton of opinions floating around on the internet on the best way to do it. It can be exhausting trying to find something that truly works to gain wealth. However, we can apply taking imperfect action to this as well.
When we look at the most common way people invest money in their 401(k)s, we see it’s through automatic payroll deductions. This allows the individual to just “set it and forget it” so to speak. The money they receive in their paycheck is the amount they have to spend, and the investing already happened automatically.
If you just stick to that method and invest a few hundred a month, you’ll become a millionaire by the time you’re ready to retire.
The beauty is that you can add more on top of that, putting a little bit consistently into a safe investment vehicle, and your wealth will eventually explode due to the compound effect.
It’s definitely imperfect, we’re not trying to time the market here, but just consistent contributions week after week can build something amazing over the course of 30 years.
3) Learning a New Skill
Learning a new skill is easy when you can break it up into its core. A mastered skill is one you can do easily. To be able to do it easily, you need to do the amount of reps it takes for it to become easy. I’ll give you an example from my life.
When I wanted to learn how to play fingerstyle guitar, I realized if I just focus on one section of a song a day, and get good at that one section, I would eventually learn the song and fingerstyle techniques. I played one section over and over again. I didn’t move on to the next section of the song until I could play the first section with my eyes closed.
I would actually flip on a movie and sit there playing that same section of the song over and over again until it became effortless and easy. Then I would move on to the next section and so on.
Eventually, I had a full fingerstyle song that I could play effortlessly. I looked like Beethoven on guitar, playing it to my family with my eyes closed.
Every skill is like this. Do a lot of repetitions, until you can do the skill with your eyes closed. That’s mastery.
4) Starting a Business
Once you’ve got a job and have an income, you may realize, (like I have) that to be truly fulfilled with what you are doing for work, you may have to start your own business. To be able to express yourself, provide value for others, and provide for yourself while doing it, is a gift to you and the world.
If you feel that lack of fulfillment from your job or career, that’s a sign to do some soul searching as to what your ideal work situation would be and start working towards it.
If you made the leap to start a business, you’ll find it’s scary but it’s also extremely rewarding. The fear comes from venturing into uncharted territory, you’ve never started a business, so how are you supposed to know what to do? All the work you previously experienced was provided to you from your employer. Having a job was easy, you show up, do your work, and get paid for it.
So how do we venture into being a business owner? Well, like everything else we’ve spoken about here, you start by taking those first steps of imperfect action.
Maybe you want a lawn care business, okay go buy a lawn mower. Maybe you want to sell collectibles, fine, go find some collectibles. Or maybe you want to start an online business, sure, jump online and see what kind of online business you want to start.
There is always one imperfect decision you can make to move towards your desired business goal. Start with that one little action forward.
5) Effort Within
The effort you put from within is spiritual effort. What does that mean? It means facing the parts of yourself you don’t want to face. It’s that feeling when you wake up in the morning and don’t want to start the day. It’s the urge to fight to be right instead of accepting you could be wrong. All of these are resistances that need to be relinquished.
This is the battle waging on inside you every second. Evaluate your feelings; at every moment you can choose to surrender your will or desires, or you can double down on them, which will lead to suffering.
The Buddha taught that the source of all suffering was due to attachment and desire. It’s our wanting, craving, and desire that actually pushes the things we want in life away.
As we apply constant spiritual effort within to overcome resistances and release our wants and desires, we naturally attract wealth, abundance, and peace.
If you’re pursuing riches in hopes it’ll bring you peace, think again. Sometimes the most fulfilling life is a simple one, having what you need, pursuing your passion, and enjoying it with the people you love.
Success and mastery do not come to those who are not willing to put in the effort within. Those who achieve spiritual mastery apply consistent effort in everything they do, and they do not weigh their success on external results.
Just Keep Moving Forward and Start
I’m going to leave you with this simple formula that can be applied to everything you do. This formula is what is not necessarily going to give you what you want, but what God/Universe/Creation wants you to have. The formula goes like this:
Consistent Effort + Releasing Desires/Outcomes = Success
And this isn’t some black and white version of success, like you either have money or don’t. This is about being an overall success, in all four pillars: health, wealth, relationships, and spirituality.
Applying imperfect action to these four pillars and letting go of any desired outcome will result in your life transforming in ways you didn’t know were possible.
You may see things like weight loss, you get married, your net worth grows, you feel internal peace, etc. There’s no telling where God/Higher Power wants to see you grow and achieve, but you can rest assured that you won’t be disappointed.
Since applying this formula to my life, I experienced all those examples, and still to this day have become more content, loving, peaceful, and constantly experience a sense of richness that is difficult to explain.
The way forward is through imperfect action, and it begins by starting.