The Importance of Getting Started
Something that is so vague yet sought out by everyone is one’s sense of self purpose. The direction you choose to go in life is one of the most important choices you will ever make and is one that has an infinite amount of roads to take. In a way it’s not fair that you have to decide on the things that will affect you in such a big way when you don’t come close to having all the information to make such as big decision. We are all learning to fly a plane mid-air when we’ve never once sat in the cockpit.
It seems some people have it figured out from the start, what they want to do and where they’re going. It’s laid out so easily for some. For most people though, it’s not that easy. Nothing has been pre-destined in their life. No set career. No set goals. No set direction at all and they’re sitting there with the daunting task of figuring all of this out themselves. Not only do they have to decide on direction, they must also draw the map to get there. This is no easy task.
This might sound all too familiar to you. Have you been stuck trying to figure out what direction to go in life? It can’t be stressed enough that you are not alone. So many people struggle with this very thing, not that they don’t have the desire to get moving in a specific direction, but rather they don’t know where to start. In the marathon race of life, these individuals have trouble even getting off the starting block.
So if you fall into this category, how do you know what steps to take to get to your life goals? After all, like it’s been mentioned, it’s not the lack of enthusiasm and effort that is holding you back, but rather the lack of a roadmap on where to put your energy. This is where counter intuition takes place. When stuck at the start line, you must get started even if you don’t know where you’re going.
Take for instance two individuals, both who have no idea what they want to do in life. Both have struggled for a long time to decide on what to focus on that will bring them satisfaction with themselves and neither has started on any goals that they have. Both sit stuck at the start, running thoughts through their head of ideas that sound good but they have yet to take action on any of them. They both are suffering from ‘analysis paralysis’, a mental block that has prevents someone from taking action on an idea because they are trying to resolve everything in their mind before they get started. As both Person A and Person B run these ideas through their head, Person A finally decides that the only way they will know what future steps to take, they must first get started on the most basic steps.
Person A is right. Having concluded that the best way to work towards something is to get started, they are tapping into the Law of Momentum. Small steps multiply exponentially down the road. Similar to how compound interest has it’s greatest impact in later stages, leveraging momentum in your life pays dividends to those who get started now.
Again though, how can you get started on something that you don’t even know where to begin? This is where you must ask yourself deep down what it is that you really want and break it down to the simplest step that you can imagine. Want to make friends? Begin by frequenting anywhere others hang out at. You may not meet someone right from the start but hang around long enough and you’ll eventually interact with other like-minded people. Want to start a business? Think of anything that interests you right now. How are businesses that serve that interest that you have run? You probably will not know the in’s-and-out’s of that business, but at a basic level you may understand how it is run. From that thought you can research some basic ideas, or even better, talk to someone about the business that may know something about it. The most important thing is to take action – no matter what it is.
Action gives birth to more action. This is the principle of momentum. By starting, you are putting into motion the steps necessary to eventually reach the goal you are setting out for. This is important for those who know what their goal is and even for those who don’t. So many get trapped at the beginning stages when analysis paralysis takes hold. While it’s not a bad thing to want to plan out your steps as much as you can, you often will not know what these steps are until you see them for yourself. By getting a start on your ideas, you will quickly learn what is important and what can be discarded. Person A finds this out first hand and can quickly pivot having now seen it. Person B is stuck writing a contingency plan for problems they don’t even know are coming.
There is a saying that states “Fortune favors the bold”. That has never been more true when it concerns those who start moving forward on their life plans. 99% of people who have goals or want to create them for themselves have no idea where to start and most never do. These people unfortunately will never realize the potential that they had because they did not know how to reach these goals and the vast majority remain stuck at the starting line. They never get to where they want to go because they fail to realize that to get there they must take that first step. Do not fall to the same fate. It is imperative that no matter what, you will take that first step and put yourself into motion. From here on everything else will fall into place.
