An excerpt from Goals by Gary Ryan Blair

The odds that you’ll succeed without taking action are about the same as winning the lottery without buying a ticket!

For those times when you feel trapped, stressed, or in a prison of your own making, take purposeful action. It’s your Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card.

In real estate, it’s location, location, location. In goal-setting, it’s action, action, action.

You can’t just stick out your thumb and hitchhike your way to success, you’ve got to roll up your sleeves and do the work that needs to be done.

Be seduced by the attractiveness of your goal. Inaction leads to impotence. Taking purposeful action immunizes you from “Goal Parkinson’s,” a long, slow goodbye to your dreams, talents and destiny.

A quality life is accomplished when thoughtful attention, goal setting, and purposeful action click into position. Whether your dream is to be or not to be is largely dependent upon your actions.

The cure for the ills of procrastination is a heavy prescription of action, until the day arrives when your dreams and their achievement are one in the same. When that day arrives, dream bigger dreams and take more action.

A good plan will almost always get you in the door, but it is action that seals the deal. So you want a guarantee? Well here it is: Without purposeful action, the only guarantee is failure and mediocrity!

Don’t tiptoe toward your goal, walk confidently before it waltzes off into the arms of neglect. Dreams become reality through one simple mode of transportation: purposeful action.

The continuation of bad habits, such as procrastination and poor follow through, is like having an addiction to weapons of mass destruction.

It is tragically un-hip to procrastinate. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people never display their true potential; it never has an opening night…never makes a debut.

The bulk of potential resides deep within each individual just waiting to come out, and it stays there because people are afraid. The mechanics of achieving a goal makes it easy for people to relate t the necessity of action. But when action is not purposeful, it can be an Achilles heel.

When we operate without planning, we remain forever scattered and confused. You’re always busy, but not much gets accomplished. Without a deeper appreciation and application of planning the most you can expect is marginal improvement.

Intimidate your fears through purposeful goal-directed activity. Since when is being the underdog any reason for not pursuing your dreams? Remember, it’s not the size of the dog in the fight…it’s the fight in the dog!

Don’t just pursue your goal…inhabit it. Wear it, act it, live it, taste it! Get committed – take action. Life is not a scratch-and-sniff test!

When you set a goal, there’s a distance between your current reality and desired reality. Procrastination increases the distance and minimizes the chances of achievement. Procrastination is the mother of regret. It postpones the future, aborts liftoff at the last minutes.

Unless you take action to achieve your goals, life becomes a constant series of postponements, cancellations, and missed opportunities.

You will never attain your goals simply by thinking and talking about them. You must take action as all success comes down to execution.