A wise man watches his faults more closely than his virtues; fools reverse the order.
We all have within us the potential for greatness or for failure. Both possibilities are an innate part of our character. Whether we reach for the stars or plunge to the depths of despair depends in large measure on how we manage our positive and negative potential. It is doubtful that, if left unchecked, your virtues will rage out of control. Unfortunately, the reverse is not true about your faults. Left unattended, faults have a way of multiplying until they eventually choke out your good qualities. The surest way to control your faults is to attack them the moment they appear.
The man who doesn’t reach decisions promptly when he has all necessary facts in hand cannot be depended on to carry out decisions after he makes them.
There is no one right answer — but an endless number of right answers — to most of life’s problems. Usually, your options are many and varied; the difficulty lies in choosing the best alternative from among many, all in a reasonable time frame. If you devote yourself to making small decisions promptly, you will find it much easier to be decisive when the stakes are much bigger. Most important, you’ll find making decisions and acting on them far easier if you act promptly.
Act on your own initiative, but be prepared to assume full responsibility for your acts.
One of the primary differences between those who achieve greatness in their lives and those who manage only to “get by” is that successful people learned early in life that they were responsible for their own actions. No other person can make you successful or keep you from achieving your goals. Taking the initiative means assuming a leadership role, a position that singles you out for praise — and for criticism. The good leader is the one who shares the credit for success with others and assumes full responsibility for failures or temporary setbacks. When you accept responsibility for your actions, you gain the respect of others and are well on the way to creating your own future.
The two kinds of people who never get ahead are those who will not do what they are told and those who do only what they are told.
It’s hard to say which would be more discouraging: drifting from job to job because you’re always the first to be laid off, or laboring in monotonous obscurity at the same job. The first results from not doing what you are told to do, the second from doing only what you are told to do. You can “get by” for a time following either approach, but you will never get ahead. Personal initiative is more important in today’s enlightened, high-tech workplace than it was during the Industrial Age, when the ability to follow orders was a critical skill. As technology makes many supervisory functions obsolete, every one of us is expected to do more with less, determine what needs to be done, and do it. Don’t wait to be told. Know your company and your job so well that you can anticipate what needs to be done — then do it! Stop explaining and start doing!