Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change

by Beth Comstock

My own success is a testament not to an improbable succession of good decisions—I’ve had plenty of failures—but to a bias for action. Steven Pressfield, the author of The War of Art, once said that our enemy is not a lack of preparation or the difficulty of a project. “The enemy is our chattering brain,” he wrote, “which, if we give it so much as a nanosecond, will start producing excuses, alibis, transparent self-justifications and a million reasons why we can’t/shouldn’t/won’t do what we know we need to do.” I’ve realized you can’t worry so much about making the right decision. What is more important is to develop a habit of acting decisively. It’s not that I have less doubt—as with most people, my insecurities run deep—but that I act in spite of it.