There is Never a Good Time, Just Start Now
How to move towards your goals whether you feel ready or not.
Last winter I joined a 40-day sugar fast. I almost didn’t, primarily because it traversed two family birthdays and Valentines Day. There were a lot of social occasions during that time that I knew would involve sweets and desserts. It would have been really easy to say no because it just didn’t feel like a good time. Then I looked ahead at my year, I realized there would never be a good time to do this. It may not have been now or never, but it might as well be now.
My husband decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month, many years ago now. He knew it wasn’t really a good time, we had a one-year-old child and he had a full-time job. He also knew it overlapped with family holiday activities. But instead of giving up, he figured out a schedule and a daily word count goal that would help him complete his goal while still having room for family fun and daily obligations.
I once read an article by an author who wrote every day for a year. When asked what he learned he said it’s as easy to write as it is not to write. Basically, he didn’t remember the effort of writing each day when the year’s time was up, but he had the product to show for it.
Whatever it is we want to start, there is probably never a good time.
I’m not saying pack up and move house the day after major surgery or plan to travel around the world without consulting your spouse. But I am saying you need to ask yourself:
What is holding me back?
Is that barrier going to be easier to overcome in a week, a month, a year? If not, then why not begin now?
When I’m faced with a large task, whether it’s sorting through an attic’s worth of boxes, editing an abandoned manuscript or starting a new project of some kind, my first instinct is usually panic. It feels so huge, and far more work than I can manage. But I try to focus on one small step at a time.
5 years ago I trained for a 5K. I wasn’t even a runner. I mean, I had run, but not for enjoyment and rarely on purpose. But I decided I would join a training group. The day before the group met for the first time, I tried to run a mile without stopping. I did it, but it wasn’t pleasant and I was filled with doubts about how I’d managed to run a full 5K before they shut the course down. Then I went to my first training meeting and our coach showed us a Couch to 5K plan and we headed out for our first run. Except it was a mostly a walk, with short periods of running for only 90 seconds. That’s it. 90 seconds of running at a time. I could do that!
The key to making progress in almost any goal is to find a step small enough that it’s as easy to do it as it is not to do it.
There is never going to be the perfect time to write that novel, so start out writing a paragraph a day, until it becomes like brushing your teeth.
Set a goal small enough that you can make it happen no matter what, even if you are tired, even if you had a bad day, even when a big part of you doesn’t feel like it. When you look back years from now, you’ll hardly ever say you regret the time you spent trying to achieve something. But you might say you wish you’d started that manuscript, that exercise plan or that new hobby sooner.
There is never a good time, just start now. Do SOMETHING, and then do SOMETHING more. Keep going, and don’t stop until you are ready for the next new thing. Make it easy, and as a certain sneaker company likes to say, just do it.
