Y O U R F I R S T S T E P

The first step is the most vital. It’s usually the most neglected step mainly because it’s the step which is the least likely to happen.

Everybody can dream but if you don’t take an actionable step then dreams will stay dreams and goals will stay goals.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ACTION :

Your first step must be actionable. Planning, researching and things similar are stages before step one because they are not actionable and will not bring you closer to your goal. An actionable step is very easy, just do the thing. If you want to start going to the gym, just go, if you want to start a business, start it.

NEWTON’S THIRD LAW OF MOTION:

Newton's third law states that when two bodies interact, they apply forces to one another that are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.

FOR EVERY ACTION THERE IS AN EQUAL AND OPPOSITE REACTION.

The diagram on the right :

  • The horizontal line represents success

  • Diagram A = low effort put in

  • Diagram B = high effort put in

  • B = much closer to success

If you make hard choices now, you will live an easy life, make easy choices now, you will live a hard life. Comfort kills dreams, the choice is yours.

H I G H E F F O R T = H I G H R E W A R D

THE RAW TRUTH OF HOW TO START

Now it’s easy to say just do the thing, but you might want to know how, what, where or when. First I’ll break down the how. How do you start?

As the context changes so does the how. For example, going to the gym and getting into shape. You’ve already self-assessed your issues and what you want to change, if this is losing weight then you already know you have to eat healthier as well as exercise more. All you have to do is take the actionable step. GO for walks, runs, cut-out takeaways and you’ve taken the step.

FOR EXAMPLE :

PERPETUAL started from a drawing in a notebook.

The first step to starting a business or your journey to financial freedom is what I and many others struggle/struggled with for a long time. The first step is like the rest, you have to stop avoiding the work that you know needs doing. Buy your company email, buy your LLC or whatever it is and start doing outreach, start giving free trials for your service to learn and develop the skills. The only way your business will ever become successful is if you do so much work it’s impossible for it to fail. There’s no magic timing to waiting, watching a million videos on how to do the thing if you never use the information you learnt and put it into an actionable step. Remember in school when they used to teach algebra and all you could think about was how it was useless because you’re never going to use it, well it’s the same thing learning about business if you never start it.

The first step is more of a mental barrier rather than a physical one, in some cases, you may need to wait to get some more money to make an initial investment but even then there’s always other things you can be doing. If you want to start a marketing agency but have no skills and just keep procrastinating about it, you’ll get no where. Go take a course in marketing or go outsource your work. The how is simple, not easy. Do the work.

ACTION + CONSISTENCY = HABIT

WHAT DO I START ?

I wouldn’t even like to admit how often that question has sat in the forefront of my mind. This is one of the more complicated answers because it differs from person to person. Some people want to optimise the outcome, e.g money and don’t care about the type of work, whereas others only want to work on something they truly love. For me, it was doing something I was interested in that I could watch grow and invest my time into it because I genuinely just enjoyed the process of building something. This question needs to be asked in a state where you are truly honest with yourself. More often than not you will have some ideas already floating around. Ask yourself how would you feel if that was your work. If that was your reason for getting up on a daily basis, would you be content with it?

This question is something that requires time to answer. You could answer it straight away and know instantly but for some people is takes decades because they never sat down and thought about it. Dedicate a part of your day with no distractions to thinking about this question and have conversations with yourself as often as possible. The more you think about it the quicker you will come to your conclusion.

WHERE DO I START ?

This question is a mix of the others.

The ‘Where’ is finding your first step, and how is understanding the process in which to do it. The where comes down to reverse engineering the problem that you have. There’s a root problem of why you are asking yourself these questions. Finding the cause of your problem means you can fix it. Feeling down about your body? Is most likely due to unhealthy habits, if these habits are fixed, your problem begins to fix. Feeling depressed working a 9-5? You likely don’t enjoy your job or the situation you are in, so you need new work.

Sometimes finding the root cause isn’t as straight forward as the 2 examples above, such as if your situation is addiction or depression. But with research and trial and error you’ll find it. Things like addiction is often caused by nature of your dopamine receptors in constant need of stimulation from instant sources. Depression could be due to a million factors like stress, not aligning your life with how you feel, or even the effect a bad diet and sleep has on your conscience. 

Overall, you start by finding the root of your problems.

WHEN DO I START ?

The when is the easiest question and answer of all. The more time and reps you put in to all areas of life, the better.

The ideal time to start was years ago but the second best time is today.

The more time you spend not doing it, the more the opportunity fades away.