This holiday I have learned how to get things done. I am one of those people who can drift away into hours of thinking, dreaming and talking about things without doing anything. At the end of the day I feel dissatisfied and empty. I have been planning to complete a book for at least two years (I’m afraid to admit that I think I have been thinking about it for even longer than that). This holiday I decided to do it. I now have three chapters completed but it wasn’t the decision that changed things – it was the action.
I start writing as soon as I get up in the morning. I get up, switch on the laptop and start. I continue for at least an hour when I have breakfast. It will take many mornings to get there but for now I have convinced myself that simply writing for an hour a day is my goal – however much I create and at whatever standard. I don’t worry, I just write.
This ‘just do it’ approach has been hugely successful. Each day I start by producing results and the positive chemicals produced in my brain as a result carry me through the rest of the day. I find myself ‘doing’ lots of other things I have been planning and I end the day on quite a ‘high’. Doing is catching and doing is good for the soul. Einstein once said ‘people like chopping wood because they can see a result’. Thinking about things doesn’t create the same feeling! Not that thinking is a bad thing – but I have been researching, thinking and reflecting on my topic for many years now; it is time to do something.
Naturally I have ‘known’ about this for years. Self-help books constantly stress the need to formulate a simple habit and do it. Friends have described how they have tackled writing – ‘get a discipline and write regularly at the same time of day’. Unfortunately, my brain unconsciously rationalised this advice away on the basis of my personal mind set: Fear of failing to do a good job, being overwhelmed by the size of the project and having other more important things to do (or think about doing). I only started to understand this advice when I started to let go of these fears and decided to write whatever the outcome for a minimum of one hour. Once I set a different goal – having the perseverance to write daily – I found that I make extraordinary progress and overcome my fears. I now enjoy that hour each morning and it spurs me onto taking other action in its wake.
I now understand ‘just do it’.