Sir Isaac Newton’s first law generally tells us that a moving object continues to move in the same direction with little additional effort. If the object is stopped, it tends to remain stopped. I am reminded of this when I go kayaking. Getting started takes a lot of energy but as long as I keep paddling each stroke become easier than the last because I am already moving forward. The same is true when you want to start something. Whether it is a task, project, regular exercise routine, eating right, reading, starting a business, selling, or waking up. Getting started is the hardest step to take.
© Copyright 2011 CRJ
This is an especially important concept for procrastinators (like me) to accept. A key to ending procrastination is to start doing something . . . anything. Even if it is committing to writing just one sentence for your research project or picking up one item to start cleaning your house. Once you start something it will be easier to keep going.
I exercise fairly regularly. When I am in the habit of exercising it is easy to motivate myself to exercise next time. I don’t want to lose the progress I have gained. When I get sick or if I let life get in my way and miss a few workouts, I tend to continue to find excuses to postpone exercising one more day, then one more day. Once I stop it is very hard start again.
To get started again:
- Determine the smallest action necessary to get started. Make a commitment to yourself take that small action. Sometimes my small action is to pack my gym bag with exercise clothes. Now I can’t use the excuse that I don’t have my clothes packed.
- Schedule small actions on your calendar. It may seem silly to schedule small tasks. Commit to taking that small action at the time you have scheduled it. Ninety five percent of the time I will accomplish a lot more than that.
- When you have finally started, don’t stop. Determine the next small step. Don’t expect to accomplish the entire task in one sitting. If you only accomplish that small task, just determine the next small step and schedule it for later. You may find yourself accomplishing several small steps in one sitting but when it is time to stop for now, determine that next small step. Zig Ziggler said, “People who never take step 1 never take step 2.”
What are you putting off right now? What is the smallest action to get started?
Right now I haven’t gotten started organizing my finances for the week and I haven’t determined my next blogging milestones. To get started, I will commit to scheduling time to at least download my bank transactions and listing some blogging milestones.
What are you having a hard time starting right now? What small action can you do to get started? If you are willing to share, add them to the comments below.
Chris – inspirational. My next step (after hitting ‘post comment’) will be to go into my office and write down the 5-10 things I need to do to move the 2-3 open projects forward. Thank you for your succinct action steps! Ray
You are doing awesome stuff Ray. Keep it going. Thanks for the comment.
OK – we haven’t even started our taxes – let alone our finances for the week! But, I do have a bill to pay right now even as I sit at the condo overlooking the water – thanks for the reminder!
Great blogging, bro! I will try to get Ryan to subscribe, too!
Taxes are an easy action to put off. For me it is like going to the dentist. Don’t forget that you are able to overlook the water this morning because of the actions you have taken before.
I enjoyed April 4th’s blog so much that I thought I would read April 3rd’s inspiration. Very timely for me. I have a life goal that takes daily steps to complete. I get exhausted by the daily grind and frustrated with the incremental progress. I easily forget about the previous 3 years of my incremental work’s accumulation and the distance at which I have traveled during that time. Additionally, we just had a new baby which supplies all the excuses anyone needs to lose momentum. Once again, great encouragement! Thanks.
Joel – I here what you are saying. I’m embarrassed to say how long it took me to get to a point to start this blog site. It’s all learning and even what doesn’t seem like progress is moving us closer to where we need to go.
I am so proud of you. Just doing this is making me feel like a slacker. I have so much that I need to get off my keester and start, finish or imagine. You, my dear nephew, have given me a swift kick and I plan on sending out my completed novel and finishing my unfinished novel. Thank you.
I was a slacker today too. I had two tasks that I found myself putting off. Just starting something like creating files was enough for me to actually get them done today. Your success inspires me.
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Insightful and meaningful. I did sleep in today as it is a day off. Keeping momentum – I like it.
I’m glad you liked it. Thanks for the comment.
Good points. I liked determining the smallest action necessary to get started.
Great point. I struggle with this every day but also find the smallest action just to get started. Thanks for your comment. You have a great web site!
Love the Zig Ziggler’s words, I’ll always keep it. Sometimes we dont think that the expert did the hard beginning too, even they were worst than us.
Really love your post, thanks for reminding me. I’ll read my unfinished books today. Keep on writing
What a terrific quote from the great Zig Ziggler. Although hard to believe sometimes, this quote is very true.
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