      Oxford dictionary defines start as ‘to begin doing or using something’.
      What we can understand from this is it indicates acting upon something that you intend to do. Putting things into motion.
What to Start.
Maybe we can start with a new habit, a new mindset or perspective about people or things. A new exercise or experiment. Anything that changes the course of our life. Pick specific areas of your life where you can start making nominal/small changes.
Given below are a few areas where we can start making changes which would improve our life.
1. HEALTH
- Eat fruits on regular basis.
- Daily walk.
- Avoid junk food.
- Exercise regularly.
- Proper sleep and rest.
- Meditate.
2. JOB/ CAREER
- Network/connect with more people.
- Learn new skills.
- Provide new ideas and valuable feedback.
- Learn different ways to do same things.
- Lead with example.
- Try new things.
3. RELATIONSHIP
- Spend valuable time with close ones.
- Travel with loved ones.
- Hello each other in doing daily tasks.
- Give and take genuine feedback.
- Communicate better. Including your problems as well as your achievements.
4. HABITS
- Analyze your habits. Support good habits and find ways to eliminate or reduce bad habits one at a time.
- Prepare a list of habits you want to have. Practice making one habit at a time.
- Work on creating an environment that supports and influences good habits.
- Acknowledge and be proud of good habits that you have built over time.
- Try to be consistent with habits that help in your overall development. Reward yourself from time to time for those habits.
5. TIME
- Prevent wastage of time. Acknowledge activities that waste your time, so that you can avoid them or minimize indulging in those activities.
- Try to have a short list of things which you could get done effectively and support your productivity. The key is to keep you in the game for a relatively longer period but with less hustle on a day-to-day basis.
- Keep buffer time in between activities which will help your next activity be unaffected if the later one takes more time.
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When to start
There is no perfect time to start except now. The important thing is to start. Start with the available resources you have. Once we start, we can always learn and improvise with our experiences. If we always wait for the perfect start, we might never start. Start with small steps and you will be ready as you gain momentum.
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Tools / resources to start
We can always prepare a list of things we require to start. However, do we even consider what are the most essential things to start? Those are the basic things that matter the most. For e.g. To write an article, we can state a list of things that need to be there to make it a great article. But I just started with a pen, book, and an idea that I thought I could share. I started putting out my ideas raw. I will edit the drafts in the process. That’s it, those are the basic things. So, before you decide to start something next time don’t allow yourself to stop just because you lack something, which might not be the necessary ingredient to start.
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Where to start
Start with the nearest thing possible. For e.g., if you want to develop reading as a habit, you can start by reading small articles every day on the internet. This will always be a good alternative for you saying you will buy some good books and then start reading in near future. Don’t postpone something that you could do now. You will find excuses later like not spending money on books or you don’t have time to read. Instead, it is better to start from somewhere which is easily accessible right now.
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Obstacles to start
Let us figure out a few general obstacles that we could face when we intend to start something new.
- Old habits/ refrain from change.Â
We are all tend to have a comfort zone where our habits and we are ok with the things as they are. But what we think of as a comfort zone might not be comfort zone after a certain period or in different circumstances. So, it is necessary to make timely changes and learn new things so we can grow, explore, and embrace change more pro-actively. With discipline and consistency, we can start new things and make progress in it. - Excuses
We can always come up with a lot of excuses for not doing things. But if we want to succeed and grow, we need to ensure that we don’t fall prey to our excuses. Plan out for things you lack pro-actively and with patience. Somethings will not be in our control but make sure we don’t allow excuses to stop us from taking required action. - Lack of Direction
We tend to wait for proper goals as well as a well laid plan to achieve those goals. Choose any area of your life and start working on it. It will be far better than waiting at the starting point. Once we start hopefully, we will get a better idea of where we want to go and what it takes to reach there. Remember everyone starts with zero. After a period, when you look back you would be grateful you started. - Lack of skills
If we think we lack the necessary skills, then our journey should start with acquiring those skills. Make sure you spend time practicing those skills. Once you get better at those skills, you will get momentum to work towards success in this field. Make sure you stay consistent and practice deliberately in learning those skills. - Lack of motivation/inspiration
If we required motivation, every time we want to do something we would never be able to put consistent efforts. What you need instead of motivation, is a fixed routine, a system working towards desired outcomes. Nowadays, we are being bombarded with so much motivational and inspirational stuff, we get lost in it without performing necessary actions for the desired outcomes. Instead break your goals into achievable tasks to do on daily basis. Work on it for a limited time and get it done. - Lack of positive feedback
We don’t tend to go forward if we don’t receive any kind of positive feedback. Instead, we should focus on keeping a check on whether we are doing all the required things necessary for the desired outcome. If we are following the right checklist for things to be done, then we should not rely on external feedback. If we keep putting in the right inputs, we will get the right results.
So, to conclude, we will always face obstacles when we start. The key thing is to not allow those obstacles to stop us from starting. We can always start and improvise later.
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What should be the approach to start?
We can never reach anywhere unless we start. Having a dream, goal, reward, etc. in your mind before we start will always act as additional inspiration. Even if we don’t have any of those, why not start to improve your life and make it even better? This approach will help you to continue to stick to the thing that you started.
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Rewards
Nothing happens until you start. We all started with a play group. We knew nothing, understood nothing initially, yet most of us completed our education, got good jobs. All because we started. We will never know where we can reach unless we start our journey.
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Conclusion
We can reap the benefit of starting only after starting. One of us, believing in his/her abilities and starting that project which he/she thinks might benefit everyone else is always better than such person doing nothing.Â
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