Start In The Middle

Photo by Lachlan Dempsey on Unsplash

We come up with all sorts of projects that we want to get done, goals we want to achieve, but we end up paralyzed by the thought of where and how to begin. We want to do it well and do it right, but in that process of deliberation, we end up doing nothing. 

So, as I’ve talked about before, better to just start. But how? And where?

Well, as I read recently, perhaps we just start in the middle.

That is, when the goal is action, don’t worry about finding the exact right place to begin. Just start somewhere, with a task that you know you need to do.

In doing so, we’ll begin to move forward, we’ll see that we’re making progress and we’ll become ever more motivated to make our goal happen. 

We’ll also experience the ‘self-correcting’ mechanism of starting in the middle. That is, we’ll begin to see the gaps - those aspects of our project that we haven’t quite figured out yet, or the prep work that we now realize we need to go back and do. And then we’ll actually go back and do it, which will move us even further forward. 

Sure, we could have spent a while longer figuring out the precise order of steps and getting everything buttoned up. But it’s also quite possible that we won’t do that work, or we’ll use it as an excuse for not doing anything. 

Better, instead, to get going and be doing the work.

So, start in the middle. Start with “good enough”, and don’t worry about “getting to perfect”.

If you just start, you will get to your ‘perfect’.