Step One: Just Start Doing Something!

Getting started is difficult for many reasons, but it often comes down to the fact that we generally hate and fear of changes. Whether it is fear of failure, fear of disapproval from your peers/superiors, or just fear of looking silly, the root is the fear of things changing from the current state.

What you can do to get rid of the fear is to start doing something. Here are some suggestions for you to begin doing what you have wanted.

1. Accept changes and failures

Change is inevitable, the best thing you can do is embrace the changes coming at you.

Things are bound to fail, people are going to disapprove, and you will make a fool out of yourself… but that’s how we all learn. So just take the first step and leave your current state behind you.

Do you guys remember the funny times of watching babies learning to crawl or walk, watching them fail again and again until they figured it out for themselves? At the end, babies are able to walk by themselves.

2. Get a pencil and a piece of paper

When I struggle to get started, the first action is putting my thoughts on a piece of paper. I make an outline on

  • what I need to do
  • what I need help with
  • what my timeline to work on things will be

Just like writing a paper in high school, this outline would help firm up your thoughts and put clear steps in place. The benefit of it is to build out the dependencies and the unknowns that lie ahead—making a map of how you will get from where you are now to where you want to head to. 

3. Then what?

When you finish the outline, you might have one of two responses to yourself:

  • “Wow! This is a great idea! I can’t wait to get started!”
    or
  • “Wow, this wasn’t such a good idea. But now I have another.”

No matter which response you have, you’ve gained valuable information and insight into your next steps. Some of the best ideas start off as small pieces of something else entirely, but you’ll never find out until you make the decision to start.

At the end of the day…

It still comes down to get started and take that first step. There are countless tools out there to help with your ideas, your organization and project planning. However, without taking some action, those tools are useless.

So what things are you procrastinating on? What things have you been putting off? What are you going to do to take the first step? Are you going to choose action?

“If you have a dream, you can spend a lifetime studying, planning, and getting ready for it. What you should be doing is getting started.” – Drew Houston

Sources:
https://due.com/blog/how-to-overcome-the-difficulties-of-getting-started/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/actiontrumpseverything/2014/01/18/getting-started-is-scary-acknowledge-that-swallow-hard-and-start-anyway/#2073598350ff

Posted in
Jul 12, 2020

Ben Record