Developing the ability to think big, believe more, and act now are essential to achieve our dreams and become successful; however, would you believe me if I told you that having a pen and notepad on you at all times is perhaps just as important? Do you realize that one of the secret habits and attributes of the majority of successful thinkers and scientists, philosophers and academics, entrepreneurs and businessmen, as well as dream and goal achievers are those who write down their ideas the moment they come to mind. Thus, the insight gained from the ancient Chinese proverb still has incredible application today, because it is true that “the faintest ink is more powerful than the strongest memory.”

Every goal, dream, and success always starts as a thought in the mind. That thought may initially be a desire, idea, wish, or belief – but it will never become a reality until thoughts are put into action. People everywhere have great ideas, reachable dreams, and unlimited potential, but they spend too much time listening to the voices of fear and doubt that they never take action. And yet, what is so tragic about this reality is that the first necessary action to take is so simple in nature, yet so often neglected. And what is this simple action? It is as basic as carrying a pen and notepad with us always, and then writing down the thoughts and ideas the moment they come to our minds.

If our ideas, goals, and dreams are not written down, reviewed often, revised occasionally, specifically organized, and constantly acted upon – then we risk becoming like the majority of dreamers who later in their life look back at missed opportunities, ideas not acted upon, and failed potential, and they regretfully say ‘I wish I would have.’

Now, as we all know, simply writing down our ideas on a notepad is certainly not enough, and will not in and of itself produce results. It is putting into action those written ideas and thoughts that will eventuate into dreams being realized and success being accomplished. However, far too often what happens is we have an incredible or simple idea come to mind – be it a business idea, something that could be done differently or better, what we can personally improve upon, or even an impression of how we could help another individual – and we wrongfully assume that we will remember that thought, idea, or impression. This rarely happens; and more often than not, if we did not write down and act upon the thought and idea in the moment, then time has a way of causing us to either forget the thought, disregard it, or actually convince ourselves that it was of no value anyway.

Isn’t it ironic that our goals, dreams, and our very potential is determined upon the ability to carry a pen and notepad with us always, write thoughts and ideas in the moment they come to mind, and then most importantly – immediately act upon the ideas we wrote with that cheap pen on a silly notepad.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 9:29 am and is filed under Personal Success Attributes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.