Grand Intentions

“The smallest deed is better than the grandest intention.”

A favorite quote of mine has always been “The smallest deed is better than the grandest intention.” I looked that up today and found that it is attributed to Roger Nash Baldwin. I don’t know him, but he was apparently a very intelligent individual to have said such a wise thing.

Grand Relationships

One of my pet peeves is to hear someone say “Oh well, it’s the thought that counts.” That is such a cop out. Many times
this is just an afterthought by an irresponsible person and it’s…well…thoughtless.

Here’s a good illustration. Let’s say you have a friend who is planning a big birthday bash for you. She explains her “grand intentions” to you, which include inviting lots of guests, hiring a DJ and a catering service. Your friend gets busy and neglects to do anything about her intention. In fact, she ends up totally forgetting your birthday altogether. No card, no email, not even an IM. But later, she says “Oh well, it’s the thought that counts.” Oh yeah, that makes up for it. Do you really buy into that?

Now, let’s rewind a second and say that your friend was wise enough to know that she did not have the resources to plan a big party, but she did find a moment to send you a birthday card. Which situation made you the happiest and strengthened the friendship? The tiny action did. Big intentions mean nothing unless you follow through with them. The smallest deed means more to you than the big party that she talked about but never organized. We’ve all heard the phrase “Actions speak louder than words.”

Plan Your Own Birthday

Now take a look at how we handle these “intentions” with ourselves. When we have a dream, we start making promises to ourselves to make it happen. But our promises become empty words if we don’t take action. We end up letting ourselves down. It’s like we intended to throw a big birthday party for ourselves but we didn’t even make a guest list.

So let’s take a look at this quote in action. I am a big fan of examples. You will most likely find an example in every article I write because I believe you shouldn’t spout off a bunch of theory unless you have examples to back it up.

The Grand Intention

It started as casual conversation one night after a very frustrating week. To make a long story short, my husband and I had been brainstorming my next career move after dissolving a partnership where I was the marketing director and I worked from home. I was not looking forward to going back into the “work world.” I was quite comfortable working alone in my home office. I am very disciplined and I hate interruptions, so working from home is ideal for me and I am highly productive in that environment. We tossed around a few ideas for “work at home” businesses, one of which was a web site for girls. After more discussion, I fell in love with the idea of building a community where girls could share their dreams and help each other to achieve them.

“Oh Well, It’s The Thought That Counts”

Suddenly, it became a really big vision. At that moment in time I knew a little about web design and marketing, but nothing about creating T-shirts and merchandise. On top of that, I had been out of the computer programming world for several years so I knew next to nothing about CSS, PHP and a lot of other important things I would need to make it happen. Talk about a grand intention! Oh, you bet I wanted to do it! Part of me was willing to sell my kids to have someone make it happen for me. A nice turn-key solution would be awesome! But, I know myself all too well and knew I wouldn’t be happy unless I created it myself. That’s just me. Besides, I couldn’t talk my husband into selling the kids.

So there I was with a really grand intention. A huge undertaking. It was pretty big from my perspective. For starters, I had no money. I had a lot to learn just to get a site up and running. My programming skills needed an upgrade and I hadn’t even done any research to see if this concept would fly. To take on this dream would mean to jump in over my head into shark-infested waters. So I immediately went and took a job as the Business Administrator at a homeless shelter.

The Smallest Deed

But then I remembered that quote. So one night, I did the smallest deed possible. I scribbled “Girls Can’t WHAT?” into a notebook that I keep by my bed and then promptly went to sleep.

So now I had a big idea and teeny, tiny action. Didn’t look like much did it? I’ve said before that simply writing things down can be a huge catalyst and this time was no exception. I woke up a couple hours later (I rarely EVER wake up in the middle of the night), grabbed that notebook and began pouring out all my ideas for the site. I even drafted a few of the characters for the T-shirts before going back to sleep. Apparently, writing down the initial concept kicked my brain into high gear.

The next morning I started thinking about that quote some more. Basically, my big dream was all wonderful and good but it was only a dream. It would mean nothing unless I took more small action steps towards reaching it. At that moment I realized it was far more important that I come up with another small action rather than sit at home fantasizing about building this site in my head. “Believing is not enough“. Hmm…where have I heard that before?

No Batteries Required

So I took the listing for my kids off of ebay and went to the library. The library? Yes, the library. I love the library. They know me by name and the Bookmobile stops in front of my house every week with a new stack of reading material that I have selected via their online request system. It’s beautiful. And, most importantly, it’s free. I had no money, remember?

At the library, I began to check out books on web design, Internet marketing, CSS, XHTML, PHP and anything else that looked relevant to what I was trying to accomplish. Within a few short months, I had gained enough knowledge to put up the framework for the site and a month after that I had my first products available. And it all started with that one little phrase scribbled on a piece of notebook paper. Had I not taken that minuscule step, this site would not exist and you wouldn’t be here now reading this post. Think about it.

What grand intention do you have that’s in need of a small deed? One of the first steps you can take is to visualize your dream and begin to write down the details. Some ideas on how to do this can be found in “Opportunities vs. Distractions” and a list of questions to trigger a tsunami in your brain can be found at Dream Questions.” So, is it time to empty your head? Begin to write down your dream. What can you do right now to move you one step closer?

To summarize, I’m going to add an entry to the Girls Can’t WHAT? Guidebook called “Take Action”:

Dreams cannot materialize without actions. Actions, no matter how small, are the building blocks for your dreams. You have to keep building and building, brick by brick, until eventually you have set the foundation for a rock solid reality. Actions speak so much louder than mere words. Don’t just say you’re going to do something, get out there and show the world how it’s done!