Empowering Yourself To Begin
by Calvin Harris, H. W. M.
You’ve come up with an idea or goal to put into action — whether it’s eating healthier or finding a perfect travel place or starting a business — Now comes the question, how to begin?
In some cases, you can look to someone who is already doing it and then reenact their strategy which can prove useful. Learning from experience is a great way to gain confidence and accelerate your own learning curve. I benefit from such observations myself.
But it’s equally important to remember that these habits and systems, are strategies that successful people realized while on their journey to success, what tools they are using today is probably not the same ones they began with.
You might want to stay cognizant to their tools and optimal running practices, they could be unworkable in getting your concept started because there is a difference between what is operational and what is a starting point.
.
Therefore, just copying their style can erode your confidence in what you are doing if you are not conscious of your present starting situation and resources vs someone using a time tested ongoing successful strategy and their resources.
Not paying attention can often make you feel like you lack the required resources to even get started. Especially If you are only looking at their present optimal operation. You can feel or even convince yourself that you need to buy more things, or learn new skills, or meet more people before you can even take the first step toward your goals, and dollars to donuts, that’s not true.
For examples.
You decide you want to do a weekend bicycling road trip. You have the proper bike and gear, but you start to notice Johnny De Gearpacker and Mildred the Adventuress, who have spent a fortune on gear: rainproof tents, moisture-wicking clothes, special bike tires, and shoes. Now I’m not saying gear is not important. Great gear can make your travels much easier on the road, but it’s not required. You don’t need new bike shoes to start riding. You don’t need new cooking pots to start eating healthy. And you don’t need a new mountain bike to start weekend travel trips. Those things might be optimal, but they are not needed in the beginning.
You can argue that it’s hard to travel light without the right bike gear, but the truth is you could make it work with what you have now.
When starting a business, and having caught the entrepreneurial spirit, one can become obsessed with having “the Best,” in office space and equipment. I came to find out that success could happen with a laptop, cellphone, and a corner of a table at a coffee shop. Yep, that is without great office space and staff.
Avoiding starts by demanding the Optimal, is what I have seen in many talented people, with their claiming to need to “learn more” or “get all of their ducks in a row” before they start. This often becomes a crutch that can prevent you from moving forward on the stuff that actually matters.
Obsessing about the Optimal can be a clever way to prevent yourself from doing the hard work or gaining the habits necessary for your success.
If you are a regular reader to my blogs, you know, I’m all for optimizing and improvement. Your gains fill me with joy. Altered habits, no matter how small, leave me cheering. Increase levels of consistency make my heart race. But don’t let visions of the Ultimate prevent you from getting started in the first place.
A bad start can always be improved, but obsessing over the perfect outcome will never bring you anywhere near your goal on its own. If you want to be happy set about actions that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy and moves you towards your goals.