I Tried Doing Anything I Wanted For A Year. Here’s What I Learned
Live life freely and chase your dreams
This past year, I followed my curiosity and tried anything and everything that interested me.
I picked up new sports, including basketball, football, and pickleball. I tried new activities, like dancing and writing. I even tried starting a business.
What did I learn from trying so many new things? I learned that not only do I have the freedom to try anything I want, but I also have the ability to greatly improve at whatever I set my heart to.
Overthinking Is Your Greatest Enemy
Overthinking is your worst nightmare when it comes to getting anything done.
Say you plan to start a business. What product should I sell? What color should my website be? What is the perfect name for my business? How do I scale my business?
All of these questions turn into one massive headache and after many hours of research and web browsing, you are still at square one.
Overthinking causes analysis paralysis, and you become stuck in the infinite loop of thinking without doing.
I used to overthink absolutely everything. Whenever I had a decision to make, I would always evaluate every pro and con of doing it vs not doing it. The result was that I never got anything done because I was too busy thinking about every outcome there was.
Overthinking is the biggest obstacle to doing anything you want.
So how do you overcome overthinking?
Think Like A Criminal
In order to overcome overthinking, you must think like a criminal. What does this mean?
It means do first, consequences second. Obviously, I’m not telling you to commit a crime, but trust that you and your body will adapt on the go.
Do you want to start a business? Set up a website or a store and then figure it out from there. Do you want to ask the pretty girl across the street for her phone number? Move towards her and then think about what you are going to say after.
This sequence of actions by doing first and thinking after allows you to bypass overthinking and get straight into what you want to do.
In addition, it forces you to react to the consequences of your actions. Because you set yourself in motion, you will have to stay in motion so that your initial effort is not wasted.
The hardest part of any new adventure is just getting started. Thinking like a criminal helps you get started.
Improvement Is Always Possible
Once you have gotten started, the next step is to figure out how to improve. Without improvement, mastery is impossible and you will never be able to achieve what you hope for.
But before you can even hope to improve, you must believe that you can. Without the belief that you can get better at something, you won’t be able to get anywhere.
Countless times, I have heard people say, “I’ll never be good at singing” or “I’ll never be good at math.” By adopting a fixed mindset, they will never be able to improve because they don’t believe in themselves.
The amount that you can achieve is entirely dependent on how good you believe you can become and how much work you are willing to put in.
Over the past year, I held the belief that I can improve at anything I set my mind to and it has become the mantra that I live by. I have made great strides in table tennis, basketball, and even dancing, something that I believed that I would always be bad at.
Set Clear Goals
Without clear goals, the path to success becomes muddy and confusing. Why are you doing this? What do you want to accomplish? How do you plan to reach the next stage?
Setting goals not only helps you stay focused but also provides a path to follow for your improvement journey.
To set meaningful goals, I recommend following the S.M.A.R.T. goals guidelines, meaning that the goals you set are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Out of the five, I believe that making your goals measurable and time-bound is most important for your success in achieving them.
If you were to learn a new language like Spanish, a good goal would be to be able to hold a five-minute conversation with a native within 3 months of starting your learning journey. Vague goals like learning random vocabulary every day or achieving fluency simply don’t work.
So set clear and specific goals about exactly what you are trying to accomplish and you will find that it may be easier than you think to reach them.
How To Do Anything You Want
Accomplishing anything you want is all about your mindset. If you are curious enough to learn new skills, you will be able to pick them up easily. If you are passionate enough to become good, you will improve at an astonishing rate.
Believe that you can do anything, and believe that you can become good at anything. With these two essential beliefs, anything is possible. Really.
