I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Ready? Maybe you should look behind you, you know, over your shoulder so that Mary in accounting won’t learn the secret too. And you might want to switch from your phone to your desktop computer because phones aren’t very secure. Actually, you should probably go down to the library where the computers are all still networked by plugging into the wall since wifi is notoriously unprotected – one could even say infectious.
Sure, I know what you’re thinking. “Get on with it, man.” or “Stop stalling.” Hold on to those thoughts for after the big reveal. Here it is:
The answer is obvious.
See? Huge shocker. Nobody thinks that’s the answer. They think you have to eat a certain way or do a weird exercise or write/sing/run on your head at a specific time of day for so many heartbeats. But that isn’t true. You want to get something done? You gotta start and then you gotta put in the heartbeats.
Look, for a moment, at exhibit A – an 1800 mile road trip with two small children. That is a big undertaking. When you are on the road it feels like it is taking forever. Especially when you’re diving over the causeway in Jacksonville and the traffic is so bad you finish all of Lion King before you’re over it. In fact, things are so bad that one of the kids is threatened with being left on the causeway if he doesn’t just STOP and he starts undoing the car seat so he can get out.
But the kid doesn’t get left on the causeway and the traffic breaks free and after covering the miles the trip is over, as insurmountable as it seemed at first. It really was that simple. It was about driving one mile at a time.
Want another example? Think of words as seconds. There are 86,400 seconds in a day. You need 86,400 words for a novel. As I sit on the train writing this, my dinner is a lot of seconds away but I know it’s coming because no matter what I do, those seconds are ticking away and I will get there. Sure, a minute isn’t very long, but that’s 60 more seconds under the bridge. A few more of those and I’ll have an hour. A whole hour! If you only write 300 words a day, you’ll still be 300 words closer.
I know, they aren’t the right 300 words but hey, think back over the last 5 minutes. Were they the right 5 minutes? Okay, you’re reading the blog so yes. But think about the 5 minutes before that. When you were on Facebook. Some of that time wasn’t wasted.
Remember what you told me at the beginning? I’m going to say it back to you now. “Get on with it.”
Thank you.
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