Now, please don’t misread that. I don’t mean, “why is it so difficult to live in the South of France, sipping white wine and eating incredible olive ciabatta.” What I mean is; say I want to learn how to play piano, I set up a routine for myself, I am genuinely excited to learn, but convincing myself to sit down and actually play is so tough.
I know what you must be thinking, why is he eating Italian bread in the South of France? How dare you, let a man dream. But really, I struggle with this and so does almost everybody, otherwise books like Atomic Habits, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The Alchemist wouldn’t all be international bestsellers.
Everyone is trying to crack the code. How do I start my book? Get to the gym? Learn to play the piano? Well, I’m afraid I haven’t got the answers for you, but I do have a suggestion. I really struggle to put any idea into action before it’s fully formed. I’ll give you an example - I started writing a fictional story about an 11 year old boy but I got stuck on his hometown. Was it going to be a real or fictional town? And how did that influence the rest of the story? Did I want everything to be set in the real world? What about a real city but a fake road? As I’m sure you can imagine, I tumbled into that rabbit hole and as a result my story was immediately dead, I only wrote 254 words.
I couldn’t get lost in the fun of writing because I felt I had to know what I wanted to write before it hit the page. The same was true when I went to the gym, I wanted a detailed daily schedule for the next 3 months before I even picked up a pair of dumbbells. I don’t think that’s the best way to approach progress. My suggestion for you is wildly unoriginal, but deeply effective: JUST START. There will be imperfections in your work no matter what, at least this way you will have a body of work, regardless of how imperfect.