Someone said, “ Words may inspire you, thoughts may provoke you but only action can lead your dreams to reality”. I found this very profound. Many of us are guilty of articulating words on new year through resolutions and even thinking about the same for some days. But mostly we do not act on those resolutions and they remain dreams in our lives.

Life is no different. We need to express ourselves in words and then think about those ideas. However, unless we act on them, we may never achieve what we want to. It is like strategic planning exercise in many organisations. Most strategic plans remain in power point presentations and in think tank discussions since no action is taken to make it a reality on ground.

In this regard, we have a lot to learn from the start ups. They spend less time in expressing what they want to do and thinking about it . They take the risk and experiment with their ideas and are not afraid of failure. Most organisations spend years on strategic planning and evaluation of alternative options and take no risks or action on the ground to try out their plans to make them real.

Imagine a student writing an essay on what she wants to become in her life. Then thinking and dreaming of how she wants to become a pilot and go to ISRO or NASA in her life. Unless, this is followed up with internships and courses in space research and visits to these institutions or similar ones, such dreams will remain a dream.

I have found employees are no different in organisations. They express their ideas quite eloquently and even think about their ideas and share them. However, they fail to act on them. This means that in most cases it remains a great idea or thought but will never see the light of the day.

We are no different in our day to day lives. As parents, teachers or leaders in organisations, if we focus only on sharing ideas in words or thoughts and do not have the courage to experiment and fail, it will remain a fantasy or dream in our lives.

This characteristic is learnt by our children, students or team members and they also spend all their time in expressing their ideas in words or thoughts but do not put in the efforts to translate those thoughts into deeds through concerted actions.

In many organisations, there is always a debate between the time spent on planning and execution. Many purists will tell us that if we spend enough time in planning, then execution becomes simpler. I do not disagree. However, my experience teaches me that many of us stop with expressing our ideas and thoughts in paper and fail to experiment through actions and execution on the ground. This means plans remain great plans on paper and never see fruition.

We need to dream. Then express our dreams in words. This could be followed by thinking about those dreams and words. However, the critical step for success is working hard and acting on those thoughts to make those dreams a reality in our lifetime. Otherwise, they will always remain dreams and fantasies in our lives.

Let us act today to convert all our dreams into reality.

S Ramesh Shankar

8th August 2022