Start Something

The hardest thing about doing, is starting, followed closely by finishing... or not as the case may be.

Starting can be the biggest hurdle to actually doing anything at all, but why should that be? After all it's always the first thing you do whenever you do anything - we should all be well practiced by now! I've been thinking about this question a lot recently and it seems to me there are a couple of broad blockers to 'starting', and that these can be further broken down. Perhaps by making a better understanding we might be able to avoid some of them.

The two general areas I feel block starting are: time and motivation. Time is perhaps simplest to deal with - it is an absolute: 24hrs in a day, plus we all should be sleeping for about 8 of them (see earlier posts about my baby boy). This should leave something like 8hrs at work and 8hrs to yourself. Anything you want to start would have to fit around this, however, having said all this perhaps it's not so simple. The phrase 'make time' springs to mind. It's a little more interesting than my first reading of such phrases as macho attempts to out-compete. If you truely have no time, then you should look at your days. Are you enjoying your days? Is there anything you could sacrifice (perhaps gladly) to make room for this new thing? Sometimes the answer is indeed, 'no', but not always. However we have now strayed. Now we are talking about motivation. Perhaps, 'starting', is all about motivation?

Motivation: an inducement or incentive. The motivated party has a real desire for some outcome such that they act upon that motivation. The following are blockers to motivation: no competition, no love, time to procrastinate or the outcome doesn't repay the effort required. Of course all of these are perceived values, but that's ok.

Competing might be motivation enough for some people - a desire to have the best, do the best or be the best. This would make things very simple for getting things started where there is real competition. Generally, it doesn't motivate me and you can't always rely on others to offer you competition.

True love of a thing might be your motivation. This is a very vague motivation - rarely enough of a reason of itself. Certainly it is a wonderful thing if you find it and if you do, don't under-estimate the value of doing whatever it is.

A thing has to be done and there is no more putting it off. Perhaps the moment of inspiration must be acted upon right now. This monograph is very much of this category. The inspiration happened and required that I act before I forgot the subject.

The result may be very valuable. Value is normally thought of as monetary (in the western culture), but other things have value too: time with family, health and fitness, etc. This entire avenue forms it's own study! What do you count as most valuable in your life? But I digress.

Perhaps next time you nearly start something, you might think about your motivations and why they appear so weak that you won't start.