How to Accomplish Things.

So you want to be a writer? Learn a new language? Write a book? Learn woodworking? Lose weight? If you want to be great (or even just OK) at something, do it every day, no exceptions.

Let's look at writing for a minute. Most successful writers out there give this advice often, and they follow it themselves; You have to write every day. It is not important if you produce something good, in fact, quite a bit of what you produce will be junk. I don't remember who exactly said this, and it will be paraphrased, but I found it funny and true; “I set a goal to write three shitty pages a day. That's it. I don't try to write good stuff, I aim at writing shitty stuff.” The reason for this is, you set the bar low! There is no excuse not to write if all you have to do is produce crap! There is another guy whose name I can't remember who sets a goal of one push up and one sit up before bed, for the same reason. There is no excuse not to do just one. The other thing about this tactic is that one leads to two. Three shitty pages leads to, at a bare minimum, three pages that can be edited. Quite often, if you can’t think of what to write you will figure it out if you just start writing, writing anything. You can't move forward if you have nothing. Let me throw another paraphrased quote at you. I believe I heard this one from Mickey Schuch. “All things beget themselves.” Apple seeds make apple trees make apples. This means hard work leads to hard work. Writing leads to more writing. Doing “X” leads to doing more of “X”. If you start doing the work you are more likely to keep doing the work. You are also more likely to get good at it if you are actually doing it. Practice makes better.

Something I have learned the “hard way” is that you have to start doing something if you want to learn how to do it. Yes, when you start you will know nothing. You will be a babe in the woods, you will ask stupid questions and you will make mistakes. This is how you learn. You cannot grow if you have nothing to build on. It can be difficult being that new person who does not know what they are doing. It can cost money when you screw up. But if you lose that money and quit, what was the point? If you continue at least you know what NOT to do next time. I have been there. If you don't ask the stupid questions, how are you going to get the answers? Being too embarrassed to ask won't provide them. If you don't start somewhere, how will you get anywhere?

Want to know the easiest way to improve on something? Feel free to pause your viewer now to think of the answer. Hint: I already gave it to you. Do. It. Every. Day. It doesn't have to be much. Set the bar low, give yourself no excuse not to do it. You will find that, eventually, you will start to get better. If you aren't willing to do it every day, then you don't actually want it that bad. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, but be sure to be honest with yourself and reset your priorities accordingly. You can't follow the path if you aren't on it. You can't get to the other side if you don't start.