“Start before you’re ready.”
― Steven Pressfield
All of us have something we can't get going
We want to ignore it.
We want to hide from it.
But dam, how it bugs us!
My challenge to you is this:
Just start.
It's a challenge, but you're going to have to discard your assumptions about yourself and the world.
Yes, we’re doing this today, not tomorrow. Right now.
If you want to kickstart, this week’s newsletter is a
Swiss Army Knife of Starting.
Step 1
Clarify one thing.
You don’t get to choose two things.
Awful, isn’t it?!
But if you want to pursue something new - a hobby, a dream, a side hustle, an instrument:
You have to choose it.
Limit yourself now.
Expand later.
"Every moment is a fresh beginning."
- T.S. Eliot
Step 2
Start a new journal.
No, not your daily journal.
The Journal of the One.
This is your fresh start.
This is where you let go of your confusion, distraction and second-guessing.
It represents resurrection, commitment and renewal.
Title it.
Not something abstract.
But exactly what it is you are doing.
If piano - “Piano Book”
If a start-up - “Start-Up Steps”
You get the idea.
In a world that bombards you, choose defiant clarity.
“A blank page is no empty space.
It is brimming with potential. It is a masterpiece in waiting - yours.”
― AA Patawaran
Step 3
Brainstorm it.
On the first page of the journal, turn it sideways.
Log ideas chaotically.
Allow it to be messy.
Stuff to do.
People to contact.
Skills to learn.
Actions to take.
Don’t judge it.
Just get it out.
Remember:
People do great stuff!
Taking action is a joy unto itself.
Whatever has held you back:
Let it go!
"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."
- Walt Disney
Step 4
The List of 5
Out of the chaos, you will have a deep sense of where to start.
If you don’t know - choose 5 things at random.
The important thing is that you integrate limitation as a discipline.
Overwhelm destroys.
Keep it simple.
"Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." - Martin Luther King Jr.
Step 5
A Thing a Day
The biggest challenge is answering these two questions:
When are you doing it
Will you do it everyday?
It is not about committing your whole life to it.
It is not about doing it all at once.
It is inviting your dream into the fabric of your life.
All I ask is this:
Commit to 5 minutes a day.
Sounds easy, right?
But most projects fail because we start by doing two hours a day, skip it once, and then beat ourselves up for “failing.”
Why not instead have the humility to build a sequence chain?
“You don’t have to be good to start … you just have to start to be good!”
Joe Sabah
Step 6
Build a Sequence Chain
Your goal now is to build out the habit of 5 minutes a day.
Log it in your journal.
Make it a loop of three repeating pages:
Page 1 - Brainstorm
Page 2 - The List of 5
Page 3 - Log Book
The logbook is not about obsessing over-tracking your activities.
It’s about jotting down progress, pain points and to-do’s.
Writing it down is about being accountable to yourself.
The danger with journals is often that they become another distraction.
Remember - this journal is about functionality, visualisation and mapping progress.
Not procrastinating!
"You may delay, but time will not."
Benjamin Franklin
Step 7
Kill the Excuses.
The first way we reveal our lack of commitment to our own dreams is by refusing to allocate a regular time for it.
For me, my writing is the backbone of my life.
It is the pillar from which everything else stems - from this newsletter to professional decisions to building out artistic projects (whether albums, documentaries or my podcast)
But I ignored my writing for years.
Until I built a routine.
When the pandemic hit, the world stopped.
And so I started to write every morning.
Over time, I noticed it revolutionised every aspect of my life - and so it became my non-negotiable.
So if you are going start: then start.
Kill the excuses.
When are you doing this?
Are you ready to do it every day?
Remember: doing it for the shortest time guarantees the build-out of the habit.
Keep it short at the start, and over time, it will turn itself into an extension of you.
"The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide you’re not going to stay where you are." - J.P. Morgan
Step 8
Prioritise the priority
Yes, it’s nice to achieve all 5 things on your list every day.
But it’s also utterly irrelevant.
The only thing that matters is that you prioritise the priority.
At any time life is always speaking to you.
Are you willing to listen to it?
It says: this is the one thing you need to do to move forward.
And then, we find ourselves listening to everything else and wondering why we are so confused.
Instead:
Do the first thing on your list as if your life depends on it.
Even if you get nothing else done that day, get that one damn thing done.
Show some guts.
Show some heart.
Do the doing.
Get through it.
Feel the uplift.
That’s the reward your spirit gives you when this comes into your life:
Progress.
I have only one rule:
I never ever do point 2 on my list until point 1 is done.
It got me used to doing hard things.
Distraction is the excuse we use not to move our lives forward.
Why?
Bin it.
Prioritise the priority.
"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Step 9
The 30-Day Challenge.
And so, we’ve established some basics.
Now we’re going to put a date in the diary.
And it’s in 30 days.
Whatever happens, we’re doing this every single day for the next 30.
There is a certain freedom which comes in the act of consistency.
Rather than being terrorised by what we are not doing, we feel the lightness of binding ourselves to something beyond ourselves.
Commit to consistency.
The next 30 days will prove to be the most important of your life.
If you want them to be.
“We want things to go perfectly, so we tell ourselves that we'll get started once the conditions are right...it'd be better to focus on making do with how things actually are...”
― Ryan Holiday
Step 10
Bring people on a journey with you.
I know many of us have a queasy relationship with social media.
Here’s my challenge:
Simplify it.
Bring people on a journey with you.
Write one post on one platform per day:
What are you doing?
Why are you doing it?
What is your pain point?
How are you trying to solve it?
Ask for help.
Don’t worry about likes or results.
Instead, do it for these three reasons:
To make yourself publicly accountable
To log your journey
To help others
Your new project is an adventure.
Sharing it is joyous.
As well as a helpful discipline.
"Through discipline comes freedom."
Aristotle
Good luck with the next steps, and see you next Saturday!
Jim
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Jim Kroft to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.