Beginning at the End

Welcome to Thought Possible. This is officially my first published article. I'm a novice, amateur writer--in other words I'm a beginner. This is the beginning of me realizing this dream to start this blog, a dream that started 5 years ago.

Why It's So Hard to Start

I've wanted to launch this blog for a long time. I'm now on my 3rd overhaul of the website's design, and that's before even a single reader has read anything remotely inspiring. I was trapped with visions of a perfect site, with tons of features, and millions of articles and readers that I guess I thought would just appear.

Well, I'm starting to write again, probably for the 5th time in that span. I've had many other drafts of "first articles" that I wanted to post, but they're in a journal somewhere that will probably never again see the light of day.

And as I think about that, I pose the question, "Why is it so hard to start?"

I feel like once I get going, set a routine, see the progress, it will be so much easier. But I can't seem to work up the activation energy required to start off that reaction.

Sir Isaac Newton described this phenomenon (although he wasn't talking about productivity) when he wrote in his first law of motion:

"1. An object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force."

- Isaac Newton.
Learn more about the laws of motion here

Just like objects, humans remain at rest, unless acted upon by some force (even a force as simple as desire or motivation). But the good news is that once we're in motion, it's easier to remain in motion. All we need to do is start.

In 5 Years, Where Do You Want To Be?

So once we want to start, we have a harder question, where do we actually begin? I am an expert at overanalyzing this question. And when we worry too much about where to start, we end up in the same predicament--we never start.

So I have a simple solution. Instead of thinking about where we are, we should start by thinking about where we want to be (or who we want to be) in the future. I listed 5 years just to brace you because it won't be an instant fix. Anything worth doing is difficult and takes time. That's not what the world teaches you though.

So I'm going to end this article asking 3 questions to help you assess where you are, and where you want to be in 5 years. Here at ThoughtPossible we take our own medicine, and have done this too. The journey might be longer than 5 years, and it could be shorter for some, but no matter the length, we are excited to be starting this journey together.

---

Thought Exercise

Instructions: Think about and write down answers to the following questions. No rules. Just make it as general or specific as you want. We'll work on specifics and refining the plan later.

• What areas of your life do you want to work on? (Personal, Family, Spiritual, Career, Health, Mental, etc.)

• (For each area you chose) Why do you want to work on that area of life?

• (For each area you chose) Where are you currently? (In other words, describe your current state or the behaviors you want to change)

• (For each area you chose) Where Do You Want To Be (In 5 Years)? (Or, what do you want to think, do, or become?)