Lately I’ve been spending more time helping other entrepreneurs and thinking about the traits that successful entrepreneurs tend to have. I don’t have a complete list yet, but here’s one that stands out: willingness to take action.

Taking action—doing things!—is what separates entrepreneurs from other people. Ideas aren’t in short supply, but concrete steps to turn ideas into a business are. The first step is usually the hardest and many never take it.

Now—full transparency here—there’s a downside to taking action. But it’s a necessary part of the process. Entrepreneurs seem to be all over the place, especially when their ventures are young. I’ll speak from my own experience. In CCAW’s early days, I had no idea what I was doing, but I never would have admitted it. For all the stuff I didn’t know, one thing was crystal clear: if I didn’t do anything, I was sure to fail.

So, I tried a bunch of things simultaneously. I was throwing spaghetti at the wall to see if it would stick. I was learning on the fly. Not glamorous or strategic, but hey . . . it’s the truth. To outsiders, I looked like I was scattered—and that was true! I was spreading myself thin as I tried to keep everything I was juggling in the air. I was basically running a bunch of mini experiments. I expended just enough energy on them to find out whether the results were good or bad. Nothing got my full attention in that phase.

But once I realized what worked, I zeroed in and never looked back. I went from being scattered and unsure to being confident and laser focused. This, combined with the observable traction that CCAW was gaining, changed other people’s perceptions of me and how I viewed myself.

There are lots of other traits that make entrepreneurs successful, but willingness to take action is a big one. Looking back, I often had a good idea of where I wanted to end up, but the path was murky. I learned to start walking anyway because the path became clearer with each step.    

Are you willing to take action to turn your ideas into reality?