How to get started
If you’re trying to change your life in some way, it can be truly enraging to have someone condescendingly smile and say, “The secret of getting started is to get started.” It’s like, yes Genius, thank you for your amazing wisdom. People who are trying to change their lives know they have to get started, but they’re overwhelmed. And no one enjoys  condescension.
So, here’s some constructive advice. If you’re trying to change things in your life, but feeling sick to your stomach at everything change entails: take a deep breath, and commit, for the next 6 weeks, STARTING TODAY(!), to do a minimum of 15 minutes work every single day on your goals. Commit to working a minimum of 15 minutes a day, and keeping a diary–whether it’s an actual diary, or a Word document, or some cool app, whatever–wherein you record what you were able to do every day. Yes, I am indeed compulsive, and many men have called me crazy, but hold your horses.
If you commit, for the next 6 weeks, to working even 15 minutes a day, and you record the steps you take, in six weeks, you will be rather surprised at how much you were able to accomplish. Consistency is a helluva drug. Taking note of your actions also forces you to start taking your dreams seriously. When you start taking your dreams seriously, you allow your dreams to become your reality. There’s no other way. There’s rather a significant difference between saying, “Well, one day I want to be a famous novelist,” in between Candy Crush games, and saying, “I’m going to be that novelist starting right now,” and spending even 15 minutes a day writing. One path will lead you to more anxiety, and shame and Candy Crush; the other path could lead you to the first two to three chapters of your first novel.
Not to mention, you can give yourself 15 minutes a day. During lunch, on your commute if you take public transportation, commit to yourself for at least 15 minutes. Tomorrow morning, set the alarm for 15 minutes early and use that time to start the process. It’ll probably improve your mood for the whole day. If not, well keep that side-eye to yourself, Kid, you’re the one who wants to change your life. You are, therefore, the one who has to start making the change.
Just get started. Today. Right now. Don’t worry about not knowing all the details, or how exactly things are going to happen: the rest of us don’t know the details either, and we just keep on keepin’ on. That’s really the only way. You want to get started? Take the next 15 minutes of your life, and get started.