Why Progress Gets Easier After You Start

(Transcript edited for clarity.)

Hi, I'm Wes. Welcome to Why Progress Gets Easier After You Start, or Why Momentum Changes Everything.

This is Wes with Your Life Systems.

We're going to talk about building momentum, how to build momentum in anything you're trying to accomplish, and the importance of building momentum.

Years ago, I was reading a book about success, and a story in the book stuck with me all these years.

I think it was Dan Kennedy, but I'm not completely sure.

Dan Kennedy is a marketing guy.

He's a sharp marketing guy.

I've read a lot of his stuff and been to some of his events over the years.

I've learned a lot from him.

I think Dan Kennedy said he was at a speaking engagement.

He used to speak at these Peter Lowe events, which were huge success seminars with a lot of different speakers.

They'd have speakers like Kennedy who were there to sell stuff, but then they'd also have celebrity speakers like ex-presidents, military figures, sports figures, and things like that to draw in the crowd.

Anyway, he was in the back room talking to a retired Army general, I think, who was speaking on the tour.

They were talking about getting people to take action, and the general told him something about momentum.

This is a story that I think really puts the whole momentum thing into the proper perspective.

The general said he would prefer to have soldiers who were already taking action because it was much easier for him to correct an action, even if it was wrong, when somebody was already in motion than it was to get someone to start from a standstill.

Now, let's think about that.

We're not talking about military strategy here.

We're talking about life strategy and business strategy.

Let's see how that fits into momentum for life, business, or success.

It means it's often much more difficult to take the first step than it is to take the second, third, or fourth step after you've already started.

In my life, at least, after I thought about this, I found it to be very true.

So often I would get stuck in information paralysis.

I'd gather all this information, and the more information I gathered, the harder it was to actually start.

But as soon as I got started, it was easier to take the next step and the next step.

Sure, a lot of starts I made weren't perfect.

But then I learned when I made mistakes.

I evaluated, adjusted, corrected, and made a better next step.

So here's the question I want you to think about as we're going through this today:

What changes once you stop trying to feel ready and start moving?

What changes once you stop trying to feel ready and actually start taking action?

I underlined trying on that to make sure I didn't forget to emphasize it because so often we get stuck in, "I'm trying to learn more."

That always makes me think of what I think might be a Yoda quote, but I'm not completely sure.

I read it in a John Carlton thing several years ago.

It says, "There is no try. Do or do not."

John Carlton, who's a copywriter, said it this way: "There's no try to eat the sandwich. You either eat the sandwich or you don't."

So whenever I find myself saying, "I'm trying," I stop and ask, "Am I really trying? Is there a try?"

It's almost always do or do not.

So the question was: What changes once you stop trying to feel ready and start moving?

What changes when that happens?

The momentum changes.

You go from a standstill, trying to feel ready before you start, to taking action.

You're done trying.

Now you're doing.

You're not trying anymore.

You're actually doing something.

That's a huge breakthrough in most business ideas, success ideas, and life systems.

That's a huge breaking point, a tipping point, when you stop trying to get ready and actually start doing something.

Starting requires more mental energy than continuing something that's already in motion.

That's exactly what the military person in the story said.

It's much easier to continue and correct the course than it is to get started.

So what is it that you have not started?

What is it that you have not taken action on?

If you can find one thing you haven't started, something you've been trying to start, take one step toward action today.

What's one thing you can start momentum on?

A small completed action creates evidence that progress is possible.

It shows you that progress is possible.

But I think more importantly, it triggers something in your mind, at least it does in mine, maybe as much subconsciously as consciously.

It's like, "Okay. I'm making some progress. Let's keep that going. Let's build on that. Let's take the next step."

The key word here, I think, is a completed action.

I've had to use this many times.

I'd be struggling to start, and I'd have this big thing I wanted to accomplish.

Sometimes it was too big for me to get started.

But once I started breaking the big thing down into the smallest parts possible, it was much easier to complete the first action.

The example I often use is way back when I was working in the affiliate industry and building websites.

What was the first step?

You could think through the whole business idea.

You could say, "I want to build a website about this. This is the content I want to build out, and these are the affiliate offers I want to have," and all of that.

But what's the first step to actually take action?

Usually, it was buying a domain name.

It took a little longer then, but it wasn't even long then.

Now you can literally buy a domain name in minutes, maybe a minute.

It doesn't take long at all.

You go to a place, type in the domain to see if it's available, and buy it.

It's very quickly done.

That's an example.

Maybe I wanted a 50-page or 100-page site.

That was a big goal.

That wasn't going to happen overnight.

It was going to take some effort.

Sometimes I was trying to get ready and think through all of this.

I was going to put all this effort into it and wanted it to succeed, so I wanted to do it the right way.

But that was a way of keeping from gaining any momentum.

The momentum started when I actually bought the domain.

So what in your life is like that?

What big thing are you wanting to do, but you're still trying to get started because it appears too big?

If you have something like that, break the big thing down into the smallest possible thing you can do to get started.

Now let's carry on with the affiliate website example.

The first thing was to buy the domain.

The second thing was to get hosting set up for the domain.

Again, it used to take a little longer than it does now.

It still didn't take too long.

Now, in another few minutes, you can have that set up.

You can have a domain bought and hosting set up.

If you're using WordPress or some other CMS, you can usually have it installed quickly.

So in 10 or 15 minutes, you can have all this done and then start working on the content.

That's the example of taking the first small step.

You complete the first small step, and that builds momentum.

"Well, I've already got the domain. I might as well get the hosting set up."

"I've got the hosting set up. I might as well set up WordPress or whatever."

That's momentum.

You've got the site up there.

Now you don't want it to have nothing on it, so you go ahead and write the homepage and get that up there.

Then if anybody comes to the site while you're building it, it's not going to look like a dead site.

That's an example of momentum.

Maybe you're not building websites.

Maybe you're doing something else in your life or business.

Use the same thought process.

Find the first small thing you can do and do it because progress gets easier after you start.

Build some momentum.

Then keep hammering on the momentum, and that leads to more momentum.

Momentum reduces the distance between deciding and doing.

That's what we're talking about.

Repeated small wins make the next action easier to start.

Get one small win.

Then get a second small win and keep stacking the small wins.

Protect momentum after disruption by having a simple restart system.

Once you've done this several times, you're going to figure out that eventually things will come along and try to knock you off your momentum.

You need to think about that ahead of time and create a system or framework that gets you back on momentum.

The easiest thing I've found is the same thing we're talking about.

Every time I get knocked off momentum on a project, the first thing I do is identify the next simple step I can take right now.

Here's your challenge:

Do not wait for motivation to create momentum.

Use action to create momentum.

Don't wait for motivation to create the momentum.

Use action to create the motivation and the momentum.

Once you start seeing success and stacking small wins, you become more motivated.

This is Wes with Your Life Systems.

Please like and subscribe.

Thanks for being with me.

I'll see you soon.

What's Next?

·        Choose one project or goal you have been trying to start.

·        Reduce it to the smallest completed action that creates real movement.

·        Finish that action today.

·        Use the completion to identify the next small step immediately.

·        If momentum gets disrupted, restart with the next simple action you can take right now.

·        Do not wait for motivation to create momentum; use action to create it.

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