As we reach the end of another year, and we enter a time where we take stock and reflect, I thought I would share one of the best lessons I have learnt in my own personal journey. A lesson that has been equally applicable to all facets of my life.
One word……Start.
It was a few years ago now, but I had always toyed with the idea of doing a 10km fun run (a great oxymoron) but never got around to doing it. And one day I made the mistake of discussing it with my personal trainer who thought it was a great idea. To help she gave me a work out plan and strategy to make the goal more achievable.
A couple weeks later she asked me how it was going, to which I replied I hadn’t started yet. Why? Because I hadn’t got around to getting some of the equipment that would be ideal to use.
I didn’t get a very understanding response, funnily enough.
I simply got asked if I had a pair of shoes and would they work on the road outside my house? Which obviously they would.
The advice from here? Start. That was it.
So I did. And it was hard work.
I eventually got some better shoes, and running gear, but it was still hard work.
I began to be able to run further, but it was still hard work.
After three months of preparation, it was still hard work.
I completed the 10km fun run, and achieved a goal I had set myself for many years.
In all that hard work, the part that was most crucial to me achieving that goal, and the hardest part, was to start.
Once I understood that I began to see it with all my goals I had set myself. No matter how achievable the goal was, it was the starting that is the hardest part. It is the easiest thing to delay, and if you never start there is 100% chance of failure.
Once again we head towards the New Year and the resolutions that will accompany it. Mine are always some variation of better health, improved fitness, more family time and doing well at work. Finding goals is the easy bit. What I focus on now is finding a way to make a start.
And that may even mean starting on those New Year’s resolutions before the year begins. Any goal you set will have an element of hard work, which won’t be any easier later. So if the goals are important, why not start them tomorrow instead of in the new year?
Or better still, why not start today?
And I am sure you will be thinking, so what has the author of this article achieved? Has this piece of advice been the magic elixir for all their goals? Have they achieved all they want to achieve simply by starting?
And honestly, no, I haven’t achieved all of my goals……yet.
But I have made a start.
Thanks for reading my article. I hope you have a great Christmas and I wish you all the best for the New Year.
Justin