How do you start things? For example, yes, habits. But really, anything you want to start doing?
You want to wake up early to have the early hours to yourself. To read the books you excitingly bought but that sit on the shelf. To learn new things when your day job isn’t providing the paths that you want.
It seems some people can will themselves to do the things they set out to do. Good for them, and perhaps their story is more complicated than I’m assuming.
However, for me, other tactics are needed. I’ll usually find other things that are more immediately fulfilling but, in the end, don’t help me accomplish the things I’ve said I want to do in my most ambitious moments.
So how do I start? I don’t have many answers. But I’ve found that involving other people helps.
How do I read the books I want to read? I involve other people. I find someone who also wants to read the book, and we commit to discussing it over coffee or lunch.
Maybe we meet four times, maybe we meet eight. It doesn’t really matter. But setting the deadline motivates me to do the things I want to do. It helps me push through and do them even when I don’t want to.
I’ve never regretted it.
Sometimes, the easiest explanation is the answer.
Then again, sometimes not.
Certain situations that require quick thinking often come with a base level of guesswork and uncertainty. Avoid getting caught in the pitfall and glory of thinking your solution is the most correct.
It is especially hard to solve a problem when you’ve already decided on a (wrong) solution.
I noticed a bird doing aerobatic maneuvers in the wind, pulling off loops and stalls in rapid succession. I watched in amazement, it seemed like a particularly nice way to enjoy a breezy but sunny morning. “Given the chance, I would love to try that,” I figured.
Alas. As a human, I was not bestowed the gift of flight in the same way as the bird.
It occurred to me that many people likely passed by this bird and didn’t notice, much less give it a second thought. Meanwhile, I was left wondering if the bird ever wished it could trade places with me and learn to drive a car. (I doubt it.)
The bird cannot help its condition anymore than you can yours. You are both capable of great things, in your own unique way.
Like the bird, many are the passersby who won’t or can’t take notice.
Use your abilities. Do the things you are skilled at. Make the best of what you have. Do it because you can, and start by doing it for yourself.
If you can’t find value in your talents, how will anyone else?
I was 32 when I learned the term “shoegaze” originates from musicians often looking down at their effect pedals.
I was in my early 20’s when I found out that interstate exit numbers are based on mile markers, not sequential numbered as I had assumed.
I’m learning new and often obvious things all the time. Notice these moments. Remember them. Bring them to mind when others don’t know something. Remember that it’s okay not to know everything.
Plenty of people want to start new habits.
Habits can be good, bad, or otherwise. Usually when people mean to start a habit, they mean a good one. Bad habits are easy to fall into and rarely require any effort.
What is one thing all habits have in common?
Frequency.
If you want to learn a new skill, make the time to show up every day. It doesn’t have to be for hours. You don’t need to toil and grind every waking hour to build a new habit.
Not every habit can be done every day, but beware. If your pattern includes days off, the risk of failure increases significantly. Start simple. Build a pattern and make the effort.
For best results, don’t try to reinvent your entire self with a myriad of new habits at once. If you’re struggling, begin with a single pattern you can build into a habit.
Only one condition: You have to want to succeed.
Embody the change you wish to see.
Practice what you seek to propagate.
These all get at the same idea. You have some ideas about how things should be, so you do them.
Should you do them for the sake of hoping others start doing what you’re doing? No, you must do it solely for for this reason: you think it’s the right thing to do. And you’d do it even if no one else knew.
Often, in our work or in our lives, we assume that we must always be doing something. Traditionally, “nothing” is credited as the opposite of something. In this sense, “nothing” is the absence of anything.
Hindsight often reveals to us that nothing would have been a better choice than doing something. “Shouldn’t have done that.”
Still, you cannot always settle for nothing.
Have the wisdom to recognize when nothing is an option. Nothing has potential. Nothing can always become something later. Something will always have been something.
Know when not to do something. Know the value of nothing.