Ready, Fire, Aim

Sometimes you’ve just gotta go before you’re ready. I’m not telling you to be reckless, but if you wait for things to be perfect then you’ll never get started. In some of my more recent entrepreneurial endeavors I have taken this philosophy to heart, and that philosophy is “Ready, fire, aim.”

As you probably noticed, I spoke out of order. It doesn’t make sense to aim after you take a shot because then it's too late to do anything. Well that’s exactly the point! Sometimes you need to sacrifice detail and perfection in order to go quickly.

Don't get me wrong I’m a very detail oriented guy, but I’ve found this philosophy has helped me lately in a crucial way. It makes you commit. When you take your shot, it’s too late to take it back. You need to be prepared to back up the shot you took, and be accountable for doing the work that needs to get done to truly pursue the opportunity. One pillar of high performance is necessity, and committing early generates a necessity that influences your performance.

Now when is the right time to use this? As I mentioned previously, it’s when you want to get moving, either to go faster or to get started. Energy is required to overcome the heaviness and inertia you feel with things as they are, and the “ready, fire, aim” mentality helps you to pick up momentum in important ways.

We spend enough time thinking and planning, and let’s do more doing. Whatever is on your mind, take your shot and get moving. Experience is the greatest teacher. "Ready, Fire, Aim"!