One of the major reasons why some people have put themselves in tough corners is because they act without thinking. That is, they let their actions precede their thoughts and they will end up taking regrettable steps. Observably, in every facet of human endeavours, there are wrong actions that can easily be avoided and right actions that can easily be taken only if people will learn how to think before they act. A single wrong action that is taken, or a single opportunity that is lost to inaction can have adverse negative effects. So you have to align your thoughts first before actions.

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A few months back, a friend of mine brought a particular business idea to me to invest in. Looking at it peripherally, it looked juicy and I almost invested some funds in it, but I asked him to give me sometime to think about it. During the course of my thoughts, I reasoned why it was too good to be true and it made me to undertake some research about it. After researching, I was not satisfied with the outcome so I let it pass. My friend tried to blackmail me emotionally how I was going to let such a good opportunity pass by, but I was not moved.

He went ahead and invested in it, together with a couple of other friends that he was able to convince. They already made plans of what they were going to buy and how they will spend the money when the dividends were paid. However, by the time the payday came, they discovered that the supposed good business was only a ponzi scheme, and that was how their entire funds sunk. Imagine if I had gone with his words and invested without thinking, I would have experienced the same fate. Each time you suspend your reasoning and your mind when taking steps, you may not like the outcome that will result from it.

Even in family and relationships, your actions and speech should come after your thoughts. Trust me, a lot of relationships have crashed simply because of acting without thinking. This reminds me of how my friend once told me that she has "used her hand to enter trouble." I asked what happened and she said that she acted on impulse without thinking and it came out very wrong. More so, her action was prompted by an assumption she had about her partner which later turned out to be false. So she acted on wrong assumption. If she had taken time to think about her actions and the consequences, she would have made a better choice.

There are times when you will feel the impulse to act in response to something, but you should learn to carry your brain along. Not all actions are worth spending your time on. Even when it comes to speaking, not all words are worth saying. In some moments, silence will be better appreciated than saying something that you will come back to regret. So in whatever thing you do, you have to learn to think. However, one thing to know is that you will not continue to think and think without acting, this is so that the potential result of the action will not be invalidated.

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When it comes to going after your dreams for example, you have to understand that success can actually be influenced by time. That is, a dream will not remain valid eternally, there is a time that it will get to and it will lose its potency. So you should know when to think and act. Do not spend the whole of your time on thinking and forget to take any action. You should know that it is not what you think that will bring you success but what you do with what you think. As much as you should think before you act, you should not let it replace the need to act, but to make you act better.

Thinking and acting should be mutually dependent, not exclusive. That it, one should not substitute the other, rather they should work together in order for success to be achieved. It is worthy to note that acting without thinking carries almost the same magnitude of consequences as thinking without acting. Always have in mind that you are responsible for your thoughts and your actions too.

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