You’re familiar with this, I know: You need to start a project. You want to start a project. No, maybe that’s not quite right. What you want is to have finished the project. You don’t particularly want to start it. Once you start it, you’ll be in that place where you must either finish or abandon it. But what if I don’t know everything I need to know in order to finish it well? (You probably don’t know everything you need to know.) But what if I don’t have time to do it well? (You probably don’t already have time enough.) But what if nobody supports me on it, what if they belittle or ridicule me? (A very real possibility). Have I convinced you yet that you shouldn’t start? That wasn’t my intention.
I’ve been hearing a lot in my podcasts lately about procrastination, and what I’m hearing is that procrastination is almost never a manifestation of laziness. Sometimes, but rarely. We most often procrastinate for the reasons I showed above: fear, overwhelm, concern about isolation. Hey, these are genuine, legitimate concerns. I’ve found myself in the messy middle of projects and realized that I had to learn what the next step was, and only then learn how to actually do the next step. Time availability has always been a challenge for me, usually because I’m interested in everything and just can’t explore everything. And very few people have ever really known what all I’ve been up to. It would have been a lot easier if I had felt I could have enlisted some support, but I’m always afraid they’ll either laugh at me or tell me I shouldn’t try it.
There’s no point in telling you that you just need to ignore these feelings. It’s not going to happen. Instead, I’m going to share some of the things that have helped me publish a book, overcome serious injuries from a car accident, graduate college while working full-time, and increase my income from my primary occupation (that is, not side hustles) by almost 50% over two years. There’s no guarantee you’ll be able to do all these things, especially if you still have kids at home, but if there’s anything here that helps you get a little traction, you can build on that.
First and foremost – START.
START SMALL
I am a planner. I can be spontaneous, but if something is going to involve a significant investment of any resources, I want a plan. When we travel, I typically plan the travel to and from the destination, and I have a list of suggested activities, but I don’t plan those, unless we need to make reservations. However, for my projects, I plan. I find it helpful to break a large project into phases, and then the phases into tasks, and the tasks into individual steps or actions. I usually only take one phase at a time into tasks. Depending on the number of tasks, and the intricacy of them, I may only work one task at a time into steps. At that point, all I ever need to work on is the next action. Each action is a victory, a win. Also, each action gives you an idea of how prepared you are with regard to your knowledge or skill.
SOME IDEAS TO HELP YOU START
Writing: Begin with an outline. I get a lot of writing done because I’m no longer trying to fill in a blank page. You can use AI to help you organize your thoughts and produce an outline, or you can use a whiteboard or easel pad to create a sort of web of the things you want to write about. When you have the broad ideas in front of you, then you can figure out if you need to do some research. You know what? You can wait till you get to the point where you need that research before you start to do it. Write the intro, write the conclusion, write the parts you know.
Photography: Shoot stuff. Don’t start learning yet. Have fun with your camera. Play with it, change settings, then set them all back to normal. After you’ve been taking pictures you kind of like, then start to learn about your camera, OR start to learn about photography basics, OR start to learn about whatever kind of photography you want to do. I like to do photo comparisons. There are several places I love to visit, and I take pictures whenever I go. Each time I go, I know something different I want to try. So, my photos of that same place are never quite the same.
Health: You’re not likely to implement a healthy eating plan overhaul AND start a massive exercise regimen at the same time. Pick one, and start small. Do ONE thing – change one food you know is not providing what your body wants to one that does. OR find fifteen minutes somewhere in your day when you can take a walk, and put in on your calendar, make a reminder in your phone that will make a noise.
THEN WHAT?
You often find that once you start, inertia in the positive kicks in. Momentum. It’s easier to keep going than it is to start. It’s easier to put the next sentence into place after the first one is there. It’s easier to take a series of photos than it is to do the first one. It’s easier to go 20 minutes after you’ve been doing 15 for a while than it is to start the walking habit. With the writing, and with the photography, you can see your footprints. When you’re starting a health activity, you will probably need to find a way to keep track of what you achieved. Let’s not ignore that part – you need to acknowledge your wins. This is really important for those activities you haven’t shared with someone else, maybe because you didn’t want to hear them say you couldn’t do it. It’s also important if you told yourself you couldn’t do it. Your winning self needs to tell your doubting self, “See? I told you I could do it!”
THIS WORKS
I had to reconfigure my book twice during the writing process, but it was still easier than starting fresh. Plus, once I actually got started, I also joined a writing group that meets a few times a week. All we do is share what we’re working on, then go into a period of quiet writing, then come out an hour later and share what we accomplished. After a few of these sessions, I found that I could set myself up for about an hour a day to just go in and write. It’s published now, and I’m having to learn how to do marketing. This is another Start for me – I hadn’t a clue how to do it, but I just started with a search on “how do I market my self-published book,” and started finding ways to learn what I didn’t know.
I do pretty well with my photography, but I’m always looking to learn more. There are tons of websites where you can take one aspect and learn about it, and you can go at your own pace. I was doing great with my point-and-shoot camera, and when I got my DSLR, my photos were horrible for a while! This was a whole different animal, and I had to learn what makes a great picture. I couldn’t just depend on luck anymore. But I found a website, then a book and I got started.
Health – well, here I need to eat my own dog food. I need to just START. I’ve done exercise programs before, but had to stop for different reasons (car accident, overflow at the gym, yellowflies came early, etc.). Fifteen minutes? Surely, I can find that somewhere.
I just need to START.
YOUR TURN
What do you want to START, or what have you STARTED that helped you keep going? This is a safe place! Drop a comment below.
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