One place to start on your self-improvement journey
There are times in our lives where we have the sense — perhaps clearly, or perhaps indirectly, out of the corner of our eye — that we need to do something differently. A big change is brewing in our professional or personal lives.
But at the same time, maybe it’s not time to act just yet. Maybe we aren’t sure what we want to change, or maybe we’re not 100% ready.
I have a suggestion for those times.
Here it is: Start with the obvious.
So many of us spend so much time vaguely agonizing, but not really taking action, on that big change (Should I apply to this job? Or that one? Should I go back to grad school? Should I break up with them, or try to work things out?). And that’s great.
But sometimes, we also have one or two or seven things that we know for sure we need to do in our lives. Maybe we’re deeply dissatisfied with our professional situation and need to fix that, but we also know that we would feel much better in our lives if we:
Took a walk
Didn’t spend tonight on a screen
Saw a friend
Ran those three errands on our to-do list
Finally painted our bedroom
My suggestion is that you start by doing the obvious stuff. Start by cleaning your car or folding your laundry or calling your grandma or meal-prepping lunches for the week.
I’m not saying that you should ignore that bigger, thornier issue. Far from it!
But sometimes we spend so much time agonizing over that big, thorny issue, that we forget: When we move forward on things that we need to move forward on (even things that may seem totally unrelated to our big, thorny issues)… something slightly magical starts to happen:
Because we are behaving in the world differently, the world looks different.
When the world looks different, we have new insights.
When we have new insights, we make different choices.
In other words:
Action begets insight.
Which begets action.
Even if you start with something totally random.
So, if there’s some big, thorny issue that you are chewing on, may I suggest that this weekend you start with something obvious?
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As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.
Katie