Different individuals have their own reasons why they are delaying themselves from taking actions or why they were not taken actions.
An individual might not take actions because of fear , the reason why another individual is not taking actions might be lack of financial resources or motivation , another individual might not be taking the actions because of any other reasons which is best known to them.
So I would not want to give a general conclusion on why I believe that those individuals did not take actions because they might have different reasons why they did not take actions.
I will have to give my own opinion or talk about this issue based on my own personal experience concerning taking actions in my life.
Years ago I am a kind of person that did not have the will to take actions, the reason why I was not willing to take actions is not because I am not interested in taking actions but it is because I do not even have the proper knowledge on what actions to take , you can only take actions when you have an idea about what you want to take actions about.
In my own case I did not even know what actions I will take because I was totally clueless and even if I wanted to take actions just for the sake of doing it I will still get bad results because I do not even know what I was aiming for..
What prevented actions from me then was lack of knowledge of what I needed to do to be able to begin to take the right actions.
The lack of knowledge made me to experience delay in taking wonderful actions which would have changed my life positively at that time.
I was clueless and I did not even know what actions I needed to take or even why I should take those actions or what will I benefit from those actions.
It was until I seeked for the right knowledge about what I needed to do to become successful and great , it was then I finally got to confirm the importance of why I needed to take actions as soon as possible.
It was after that I was not beginning to have keen interest in taking the right actions and when I started taking the right actions I began to experience great things in my career and my life as a whole.
So if I am to follow my own experience in life , I will say that what prevents action is basically the lack of knowledge itself , the knowledge is power and so when we have the knowledge we will be able to have the motivation to take the right actions, the emphasis is on the right actions..a wrong action can be disastrous and pathetic.
So if you are not taking actions , maybe you are just like me too back then , maybe what you need is to seek the right knowledge about something you have interest in or passionate about , maybe getting the right knowledge will motivate you to take actions too.