Action Breeds Action

Who would have thought I'd be thinking about physics when writing this?

Newton's First Law says that an object at rest stays at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion.

I have recently experienced this about myself when I've felt stuck, or in a rut, or simply unproductive, uninspired, or unmotivated.

The hardest part is rarely in the work itself, the hardest part is sometimes getting started.

I have sat waiting for motivation or inspiration to strike, and now I understand I've gotten it wrong. It's backwards!

Motivation doesn't lead to action. Action creates motivation.

It happened to me just this morning. I'd been dreading doing some work on jobsinenglish, but I decided to start small, and once I got started, I just couldn't stop. My brain started going from passive observer to active participant. When I started seeing a little bit of progress, the spark had been lit, and that was enough for me to keep going.

It's made me think about other times when I've not wanted to do something because I keep thinking about the effort it'd take to pull it off, but not the reward afterwards. Whether it's cleaning my desk, replying to an email, or continuing to work on a project. But the thing is, once I've started, it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. The resistance melted away. I found a rhythm and kept going.

That's momentum. Physics.

I've found the trick is to have a low barrier to entry, so low that it's almost effortless.

Don't get the whole desk cleaned up: just start picking up the papers.

Don't write the whole reply to the email: start by just typing Dear X.

Don't aim to finish the whole project: just open the project folder.

Each small action compounds. One action leads to another, and when I least expect it, I got more done than what I'd imagined I would. The beauty of it is that:

Imperfect action > Perfect Inaction

So, I remind myself constantly: Just Start. Because action breeds action.