Just Start Now!

“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”
— Mark Twain

By the time I started writing this, it’s already 3 pm. I was meant to write this before 12 pm, but I am a procrastinator, just like many people. To be completely honest, I just thought about this article in the morning, and I desperately need my own advice. We all have days where we don’t feel our best, and we don’t get the most out of our day. It’s okay to have those days. It’s your body’s natural response telling you to rest. But if you have a deadline coming up, you know you have to do the work anyway.

We keep procrastinating until the deadline hangs above our head like a sharp knife. You tell yourself if you did the work before, you would not be in this position. If only you stayed on schedule just like you planned, you wouldn’t be in this place. I used to have the same thinking mentality. No one is blaming you. It is what we were taught as kids, teens, adults and even on your death bed that you would not be in this place if you had done this. That is all garbage.

Forget you ever learnt that. For a minute, just try to follow. I am about to tell you the opinion of some of the most successful people in the world. They say, instead of thinking about what you could’ve done, think about what you can still do. Simple? Let me explain; when you’re faced with a deadline, and you’re scolding yourself, instead of panicking and stressing out, just start whatever it was you needed to do. Panic and stress won’t lead you anywhere other than depression land. You will get more done when you’re not thinking about what might happen if you can’t complete it or you stress about how much work you have to do. Just start now!

This rule does not only apply to deadlines. It applies to studying, business, new ventures, learning something new, or anything at all. Try implementing this rule into anything, and you will see how well it works. In the case of studies, I will give you an example; a friend of mine had their exam in the coming weeks/months. They were stressing and panicking that they had not started studying yet and had so much to cover. I gave them the same advice, and I will write word for word what I told them, “Seriously, you need to stop stressing about this. If you keep stressing and not do anything, it’s not reaping you any benefits. If you chill and start studying now, you will know something. If you stress about how much you have to do, you’ll never get anything done. So seriously, stop thinking about how much you have to do. Think about what you can do right now to change your circumstance. Start now. Everything will fall into place once you do. Start and don’t stop. Focusing on starting”.

If you follow this advice, you can do things that you never thought you can do. If you want to start a new business venture and are scared about the outcome or how you will manage things, then just start. Worry less and do more. Life is too short for you to be thinking about what may or may not happen. Take every opportunity as it comes, for who knows if it will ever come again. The worst thing will not be that you failed at it. The worst thing will be that you never started. The worst thing will be that you will regret not taking opportunities as they came. I might not know a lot about lost opportunities. Still, I have seen many people in my life miss those opportunities and then regretting them in the future. So learn from other peoples and your mistakes. Just Start Now!