Why the First Step is So Crucial
This is my first post here on Medium.
I’ve been registered for a while.
As a reader.
Then, later on, the paywall got on my nerves (it always blocks exactly the articles you really want to read 😉).
I got rid of that.
But I continued to avoid writing anything myself. I like to write a lot, even professionally. It’s not that.
But sometimes, you just can’t get off your butt!
The inspiration for this article came from Jamie.
It made me smile and think to myself: I’m not alone in this. Good things sometimes take time.
Then I came to the following line:
And most importantly, I took action on it!
Damn, I thought, maybe it’s time to just get going!
Get going is a good keyword.
I’m sure you know this: you’re sitting in front of the screen and want to start. And you really want to do it! You want to write something entertaining, helpful, informative, sustainable and exciting, which everyone will want to read in the best-case scenario.
And then precisely happens what you want to happen last: you stare at the blank screen and your head is just as empty. I mean really empty as if there had never been an idea in it.
Why does that happen?
Because you want everything at once. You pile up a mountain of superlatives that can’t be climbed. You’re suddenly tiny and you look up at this glittering mountain of success and the first thought is: you’ll never make it.
The truth is: you’re probably right about that.
Because that’s not the way to go.
But what if you cut small steps into the mountain? That way you can climb each one separately. And you can pause on each step, look down, and marvel at how far you’ve come.
Taking the idea further, we could put a single goal on each step:
Level 1: write something entertaining
Level 2: write something helpful
Level 3: write something educational
Level 4: write something lasting
Level 5: write something exciting.
Here is a checkpoint on the mountain.
Here, with a coffee in hand, you can calmly set individual goals for the following stages. Because if you’ve made these five, you’ll make the next five! It doesn’t matter how high the mountain is. You will manage the next five steps. Because you’ve done it before.
I adopted this mindset a long time ago. It changes everything. No matter how big and seemingly impossible, every goal can be divided into small steps. And one of them is the first one. The only important thing is to climb this first step.
That’s what I did on my Medium mountain today.
I will definitely manage the next four steps!
This is part of a 10-day Medium story sprint we are running in the Passion & Profit community, and we would love to see you there!
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