Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.” — Benjamin Disraeli

Some of us are excellent planners. I pride myself on planning every detail of a trip, whether business or pleasure, to ensure I make the most of my time wherever I’m going to. There’s room built in for discovery, but the key building blocks of an impactful and successful trip are covered. The key to maximizing the return on that time and effort investment spent in planning is action. We must do the things we said we were going to do.

We’ve turned the corner into a new year. All that planning must now be realized through action. The workouts, the calls we promised to make, the books we said we’d read and the waterfalls we said we’d go see are all lined up and waiting for us. We must keep our promises to ourselves and do something with the opportunity.

Everyone wants to be happy, but what is happiness but a byproduct of action? What is a long term, happy marriage? Ask someone out on a date, find there’s a spark, build bridges out of common ground, and thirty years later find that we’ve built a hell of a life together. Happiness is the series of actions by each player in the relationship to keep it all together through all that life throws at us along the way.

What is the opposite of happiness? Indifference. Which is manifested by inaction. Every day I play frisbee with the pup. The moment one of us becomes indifferent the game is over. One side is waiting for the other to be present again and momentum fizzles away. It’s not such a leap to see this applies to more than frisbee. When we go through the motions, skip steps, and drift away mentally or physically, the gap grows between the state we wanted and the reality of our life. We must invest ourselves daily in the work necessary to keep the game alive, whatever that game is for us.

So here we are with all that planning just waiting to be executed on. We know the first step is going to be awkward, but still a bit thrilling. We know our inclination may one day—maybe tomorrow, maybe next week—lead to indifference. Just as indifference kills action, action kills indifference. Each day we show up builds momentum. So we must show up and honor all that planning with action.