It seems obvious that if you want to get results fast you much start fast, dive in an start delivering.

However, that is a common mistake that many people make. They confuse action with effectiveness and being busy with making progress.

Just recently I was listening to Mo Farrah 4-time Olympic champion and 6-time World champion, who was talking about running and he said every run he starts slow, he wants to make sure that he is calm and relaxed, as no one ever does their best when stressed. He looks to get into his stride, find his rhythm and it is then that he looks to accelerate.  Find good form, and go from there, whereas if you start too fast you become ragged, and it never ends as well as you would hope.

This is true of any endeavor, we need to make sure that our first steps are the right steps the ones that plant us on the road to success, because only when we are on the right road should we look to speed up.

Einstein said if he had an hour to save the world he would spend 55 minutes understanding the problem, and 5 minutes trying to solve it.

Most of us spend 5 seconds understanding the problem then and 59 minutes to fix it, but if you have taken the wrong path all of that effort is wasted and you will never achieve the results that you desire.

It’s not the longest or fastest steps that are most important, it’s the ones that set us on the path to success.