Martin Luther King Jr. said:
“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.“
So here we are – halfway through this current calendar year.
The day itself is no more or less valuable than the first day of the year or the 99th day of the year. They are all just as blank in terms of a canvas.
RANT: I absolutely dislike the 1st of the year. New Year’s Resolutions are a joke, not because they don’t work for the vast majority of people that attempt them.
They are a joke for the same reason why people wait until Monday to start something new at work.
Or those that must wait until the weekend before they can start their project at home.
Or how about the one where you will wait until the first of the month to get started ‘for real’ on that workout, or budget, or starting a new habit that you know will uplift you.
These approaches are all completely arbitrary crutches for broken dreams and fears that are holding us back.
Here’s the truth – you can start to change your mindset on any day.
I just shared a post about a completely random day in which my mindset transformation was triggered while getting my ass kicked in physical therapy.
In all honesty, I cannot even tell you which day it was. Many of those days in the PT room were a blur, and I likely was not thinking clearly as I could have been most of those days due to a variety of factors. I think it is awesome that I am unable to pinpoint the exact date when this happened.
I can remember the emotion of it all, though.
I can remember the burn of determination coming out of some place primal.
I can remember it was in the morning of a day that was about to resume the normalcy of my Thursday and Friday ‘working from home’ routine that invariably had me locked in my office on conference calls – for multiple hours while rubbing my dogs belly with my feet.
I had zero clue the ramifications of my spark from that morning.
All I knew was that a new and exceptionally private truth had emerged, that something had shifted – never to be the same again.
Sometimes, you change your life. Sometimes life changes you.
Sometimes we transcend change itself.
You know what else?
Change does not wait for a date or a day of the year or a certain week of the year for you to get your head on right and your ass in gear.
As you sit there reading this on your phone or on your laptop or iPad – you know there is something that is pulling you to be a better version of yourself…
Why not take advantage of this arbitrary and highly bullshit day 180 and start moving towards that better version of yourself.
So I’m sure there are a few thousand productivity blogs and podcasts that have already talked about week 26 and day 180. Many of them implying that you’ve wasted half the year already doing all of the old things you have historically done.
Talk about a momentum killer.
Let’s guilt everyone of us into doing something as you have wasted half the year. Maybe this actually works.
My experience is that this sort of external motivation burns off within a couple of weeks if not a few days. Day 1, Day 1 of month X, 1st day of the week – they are all external pivots towards a failed attempt of doing something better for yourself that is likely too big to accomplish for yourself anyway. Let me tell you about the first two weeks in January at my gym versus what I just experienced this past Thursday and Friday nights…
I may have seen a tumbleweed or two at my gym those nights…
However, if you can use today’s ‘Day 180’ or any arbitrary date to tap into that source within that is prompting you get after it – whatever it is – then you have something useful. In my experience, you just need to start.
As in today. As in – get off the computer and do something to get yourself moving in that direction.
So to start — this can mean a thousand different things to each of you. Let me caution on an approach that is certain to cause you friction, likely triggering you to tap out as if Royce Gracie had you in an arm bar.
[As an aside – I had an incredible Uber ride the other night for an unreal midweek ‘self care’ session. This mountain of a man outlined what it was like to fight other 300 lb men in the Octagon, and he knew a bunch of people here in Frisco and San Antonio. I’m thinking there’s a sign here to get back into martial arts…I digress]
Start big and audaciously, you will likely fail.
Let’s take a real example – like cleaning out your garage that really needs to be organized and cleaned. Let’s say you have boxes from when you moved into your current home, you can barely fit your one car into the garage and you can feel the creeping of clutter every time you park the damn thing.
So you have read to this point, and you say to yourself – it is Saturday, and I am going to clean that garage today. The whole thing. I’m going to power wash the floors even, and I’m going to get it done today and tomorrow – got the whole weekend to rock this.
Here’s what’s going to happen – either you will do the whole entire thing as originally envisioned or you will not. The will not scenario could be a variety of flavors of failure if you are into self judgement, as so many of us tend to be.
In the ‘I did it’ scenario – I am willing to bet that you will be so tired and burned out by the time Sunday night rolls around – you will be ‘tapped out’ when Monday comes around. You might even be self congratulatory and decide that was enough for a couple days, and you can take a break from moving towards that better version of yourself that has your entire home in order as you see fit.
Uneven performance.
Uneven consistency.
Ultimately – likely a candidate for burnout if not inconsistency with this extreme approach.
Now let’s look at the ‘I did not do it’ set of scenarios. Invariably, you know you did not achieve the stated outcome. You may be someone who is self forgiving. You may be someone that will judge yourself harshly. You may even be someone that frankly could care less about cleaning the garage and decided just as quickly to skip it today.
In all cases – you invariably have failed on a level that you are aware of and that you understand. This is a huge de-motivator for many people. Even the most disciplined types struggle from the occasional mis-step, and sometimes the restart is even harder in terms of resuming the discipline.
Before I move on with a few tips on what to do to get started – there is a third type of outcome – it is a variation of the ‘I did it’ scenario. This variation is for those that actually take on a seemingly large goal like cleaning out a multi-year garage problem in a couple of days and they are onto the next target.
These are very rare individuals indeed.
These are likely experienced ‘life livers’ that understand what it takes to get audacious things done like this – regularly and as their matter of course. They likely have figured out the mindset that works for them, the techniques that work best for them for any given dimension of life, and they likely have habits and systems that compensate for weaknesses and enhance their areas of strength.
These are the ninjas at life, and for many of us – this is not realistic due to our beliefs – at least not yet.
If you are struggling to get started with the one thing today – you are not yet a ninja.
So let’s steer clear of the audacious and big time things for the moment
The best thing you can do is to start small. Reduce the excuses to start by making the first step today, so small that it would be ridic not to get going on it. The point is to get started with rolling this tire down the hill to quote an old boss of mine.
The seemingly smallest thing could erupt years later into a new life. It could be a personal transformation that is multifaceted. Or it could be a clean garage that does not bum you out every time you pull in.
A decision to start today is the first thing to get your momentum moving in the right direction.
Shifting your mindset today – that could be the one thing, and now you are onto something.
Writing down the next action you plan to do for tomorrow could be a powerful ‘jab and hook’ to setup your momentum.
Decide to start today – boom, mindset is shifting – and write down the next thing you can do tomorrow – you have done what you need to get started today.
Let’s look back at that garage example.
Perhaps you have a slew of cardboard boxes that could be recycled. Perhaps you have bunch of soccer balls, soccer equipment, and generally a crap ton of sports equipment strewn in the corner.
Today you could start by counting how many cardboard boxes you need to flatten and recycle.
Today you could inventory how many soccer balls you have all over the place.
Today you could drive a single nail in the wall out there to get ready to start hanging some of this stuff off the floor.
Or you could put this stuff down on paper as the beginning of a task list. You have started now.
Action is genius and it invites participation from those around you. I also argue it begins to invite the world in more general terms to get in motion with you. Small mouse level steps are still action.
Action compels the future – however small it is. It may turn out that it was not the most effective action for that moment in time, but you would never know had you not started enabling course correction.
You will not get to where you know you need to be by sitting in a parked car. Tough to steer one of those…
Start today, start small, and look for consistency in your daily approach with ongoing action.
Don’t do it for me or for the calendar either – otherwise you will very likely be frustrated by your seeming failure.
I promise you will be astounded by your results a year or two out as you increasingly shift into higher gears driving your car past so many parked cars…
