How to Get Started…

Do you have ideas, plans and goals that you think about, but just can’t ever seem to get started on? Do you procrastinate and worry about how things would work if you tried to move forward with those ideas? Me too. Below is a case study of one such idea I have had for ages, and finally got around to starting.

 

This Monday will see the last of my weekly Embrace Relaxation classes for this term (which return in September, after a summer break). I can hardly believe it has been running for nearly 2 months! It has been a successful project for me on several counts: Mainly because:

• People came along and enjoyed it
• I enjoyed doing all of the planning and preparation and I loved teaching the classes
• I have received amazing feedback from the women who have attended
• I have felt the physical knock-on effects myself. I leave the class floating each week – this has got to be a brilliant benefit! 

We practise Green Therapy in our classes. Just allow your eyes to rest while gazing at something green.

So, it got me thinking about why it took me so long to get started on such a project and why I found it such a difficult thing to do? I realise that I have a problem with the idea of ‘being ready’. I always think there is more to learn, more to read about, more flourishes and embellishments that could be added and more details which could be tweaked. It is one of the main issues I have had with writing a blog, marketing my services or even putting this website together. It is a theme which has run through most of the things I have done. But there comes a point with every project I try to put my hand to, when I must think “…Okay… I am ready…”, otherwise I would never have done anything!

You have to climb a hill one step at a time, but the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll reach the top!

‘Know Thyself’

A few years ago I completed an online personality test called Strengths Finder, which is designed to pull out your strengths and talents and show you how to develop them in a work context. It is quite a useful exercise, as it gives you your top 5 ‘themes’, which is like having your personality distilled to its essence. What jumped out at me from this test, was that my top 3 themes were ‘Input’, ‘Learner’ and ‘Positivity’. That fits me to a ‘t’ actually. Although it was great that my strengths were in the region of learning, (it’s what I love), the test also pointed out that I needed to develop my action-skills. (Incidentally, the test results guide you in how to use your strengths, and improve your ‘weaker’ areas).

So in the case of the Embrace Relaxation Classes, I needed to take the action steps towards starting this project – researching a venue, booking the hall, telling people about it, preparing the content and so on.

Once I had booked my venue and had the dates in the diary, I got down to the nitty gritty of planning what would we would be doing in the sessions. Knowing that I was now committed, I just had to say to myself ‘I’m ready… enough’.

I enjoyed this book, not least because I used to be quite sceptical about meditation myself, and have also found a way to make it work for me.

How To Get Started on Any Project

1. Make a start.

2. Dedicate 20 mins a day to your project – and stick to it. You will start to make progress in no time (and I found that when I set myself 20 minutes, I usually got stuck in for longer).

3. Decide what you want to achieve and by when. As well as an overall goal, think about what each step will be – these will form your short-term goals.

4. Think to yourself ‘How will I know when I’m there?’ Ensure that you know what the end goal or (in NLP-speak) solution-state will look like.

4. Create a vision board of what you want to achieve and/or write your goals up somewhere where you will see them every day.

5. Make a start! 

 And of course keep going.

What I learnt from this experience was that sometimes, success can be relatively easy, and that for me, once I committed, it helped me get started. I also practised trusting that I was ‘ready enough’…

 

I’d love to hear your experiences with putting projects off, procrastinating and wishing you could start – and what has helped you to get started. 

 

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