This came out of Tune Into the True You, a free 31-day course I made in December 2015. A quote and a small task every day.
It's late 2015 and I'm stood outside with a camera pointed at my face. It's cold. It's only just stopped raining. I'm recording day two of a course about getting started.
That's the joke. If I'd waited for perfect weather, that video would never have been made.
The very first quote in the course is usually given as a Chinese proverb. "Teachers open the doors, but you must enter by yourself." I put it first on purpose. I can open the doors for you. You have to step inside. The people who get the most out of a seminar are the ones who actually read their notes afterwards. Reading and watching only pay off when you do the work.
I came to all this after more than ten years of depression and anxiety, and the physical illness that went with it. A lot of what helped me is in those 31 days. That's my story, not medical advice. If any of this sounds familiar, please speak to your GP. I talk about it openly because the more of us who do, the easier it gets for the next person to say what's really going on.
Leave A to get to Z
I opened day two with an old line. "You don't have to be great to get started, but you do have to get started to be great."
So what are you putting off? Maybe it's getting healthier. Maybe it's a change in your relationship, or at work. You know what it is. You probably know the result you want. You might even know roughly how to get there. You just haven't taken the first step.
You don't need the whole route mapped out. Think about the alphabet. To get from A to Z (or zee, if you're reading this in the US) you have to go through B, C, D and all the rest. But if you never leave A, you're not getting any closer to Z, are you?
And most of us are very good at staying on A. We wait for a sunny day. We wait for our friends to give their approval. We wait for Monday. Why does everybody wait for Monday? Or New Year?
Stop waiting. Start doing.
Your excuses
"If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse." (Jim Rohn)
The excuses are usually the same ones. I don't have the time. I don't have the money. I'm not clever enough. I don't know anyone who can help. Most of the time they're a way of dodging something we already know we need to do. Write yours down and look at them honestly. How true are they? Once you can name them, you start to catch them creeping up on you. "Yep, that's my excuse again."
Getting started will probably mean getting uncomfortable. Picture driving to a friend's house you really want to get to. You hit road works. You don't turn round and go home. You get a flat tyre, you sort it. You get lost, you ask someone for directions. You're stuck in traffic and desperate for a wee, so you find a toilet. But you keep driving. Anything you want badly enough, you'll accept a bit of struggle to get it. You won't enjoy every minute, and you'll keep going anyway.
Think in ten years, act today
Every morning you wake up with 86,400 seconds. If someone handed you £86,400 every morning, I'm sure you'd find a way to use it. Time, we waste. On telly we're not even watching. On a news feed full of people complaining.
Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten. So think long. What's the one thing you'd be gutted not to have done ten years from now? What can you do this year to move towards it? Then this month, then this week. And what are you going to do today?
There's a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware, who spent years caring for people at the end of their lives. The regret she heard most was "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me." The quote I used that day said making a big life change is scary, but regret is even scarier. It's usually credited to Zig Ziglar, though I've never found where he said it. It's right either way.
Try this
Grab a sheet of paper and write down everything you've been putting off. Big things and small things. Then pick one. Just one. Take one step on it today, even if that step is a phone call or blocking out half an hour in your diary. No waiting for tomorrow.
The weather's never going to be perfect for it. Go and get a bit wet.
