Just Start

It's ironic. I'm having so much trouble starting a post about starting.

I've tried starting in the morning, starting at night, starting after watching a few videos on YouTube, starting while playing the videos as background audio. It's been two days, nothing worked. But as I am writing now, I realize I finally have a few lines on this page. Holy crap, I'm writing. Anyway, I have Neil Strauss and Tim Ferriss talking about writing in the background, so I hope that helps.

But as I write this, I become aware that there's always this pressure to be great or to at least be "good enough." For whom? I'm here banging my head trying to fill up a page because of this chip on my shoulder. And it's a familiar feeling, one that I feel almost every time I write or start something new. Then all these questions and attacks on myself lurk into my mind. "Will people like this?" "Is this as good as the last time?" "Maybe I should just stop and do something people actually like."

"For whom?" I ask again. "For them," I answer to myself. "Who's them?" I follow up. And at this point, I'm just at a loss for words because it dawns on me that "them" is actually just another word for fear. Fear is something internal and self-imposed. There is no "them," there is only me and my excuses. Pat would often remind me as well, "Do it for yourself," she would say. And she's absolutely right, because really, who cares?

The truth is, no one cares. If whatever you've created mattered to someone or affected another person positively, then great. But if not, walang sayang, as my Theology 141 Professor Sir JP Bolano would put it. And for those two reasons - no one cares and there's nothing to lose - there is no excuse not to start. There is no right time to do it. Just start.

This is a handful on when procrastination works and when it doesn't, why we should get started, how to get started, and following through.

1. Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator, a TED Talk by Tim Urban

Tim Urban is the man behind Wait But Why. He uses stick figures to illustrate and present his ideas. In this video, he explains the effectivity and dangers of procrastination and why we should be aware of the things that we are unconsciously procrastinating on. Stick around 'til the last bits of the video. It's where he reveals why we should start.

"And it's this long-term kind of procrastination that's much less visible and much less talked about than the funnier, short-term deadline-based kind. It's usually suffered quietly and privately. And it can be the source of a huge amount of long-term unhappiness, and regrets. And I thought, that's why those people are emailing, and that's why they're in such a bad place. It's not that they're cramming for some project. It's that long-term procrastination has made them feel like a spectator, at times, in their own lives. The frustration is not that they couldn't achieve their dreams; it's that they weren't even able to start chasing them."

2. How Richard Branson started Virgin Atlantic

Photo taken from Sir Branson's Twitter

“If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later”

I'm pretty sure you've seen or heard of that quote above. It's a better-sounding version of "fake it 'til you make it." Opportunities come and go everyday, but oftentimes we say no to them because we don't feel that we're good enough for it or we're afraid that we'll fail at it. We have two options: Option 1, we say yes. If we succeed, then great. If we fail, then it's a great learning experience. Option 2, we say no and we fail for sure and we miss the chance to learn anything.

This is a story of the first flight of "Virgin Airways." It's an excerpt from his autobiography and it's "fake it 'til you make it" at the highest level.

Joan and I stayed on Beef Island for the rest of that holiday, and it was there that I set up Virgin Airways. We were trying to catch a flight to Puerto Rico, but the local Puerto Rican scheduled flight was cancelled. The airport terminal was full of stranded passengers.

 

I made a few calls to charter companies, and agreed to charter a plane for $2,000 to Puerto Rico. I divided the price by the number of seats, borrowed a blackboard, and wrote VIRGIN AIRWAYS: $39 SINGLE FLIGHT TO PUERTO RICO. I walked around the airport terminal and soon filled every seat on the charter plane. As we landed at Puerto Rico, a passenger turned to me and said:

 

"Virgin Airways isn’t too bad – smarten up the service a little and you could be in business."

 

"I might just do that," I laughed.

3. The 5-Second Rule, an interview with Mel Robbins on Impact Theory

Mel Robbins is that tita whose love is always tough and whose presence is low-key scary, but you go back to her for help anyway. She's a speaker and author, and the woman behind the 5-second rule.

It only takes a few seconds before your brain comes up with excuses to not do something and be lazy instead. If you're like me and you have trouble getting up every morning, then this is for you.

“Hesitation is the kiss of death. You might hesitate for a just nanosecond, but that’s all it takes. That one small hesitation triggers a mental system that’s designed to stop you. And it happens in less than—you guessed it—five seconds.”

4. Sol LeWitt's letter to Eva Hesse, Read by Benedict Cumberbatch

Sometime in the 1960s, Eva Hesse, a sculptor from New York who moved to Germany, suffered from creative block and a lot of self-doubt, so she called out to her friend Sol LeWitt, who is also an artist, for some help. The photos below (taken from brainpickings.org) are the 5 pages of his reply to Hesse. The full text is in the description of each photo.

Try to do some BAD work — the worst you can think of and see what happens but mainly relax and let everything go to hell — you are not responsible for the world — you are only responsible for your work — so DO IT. And don’t think that your work has to conform to any preconceived form, idea or flavor. It can be anything you want it to be. But if life would be easier for you if you stopped working — then stop. Don’t punish yourself. However, I think that it is so deeply engrained in you that it would be easier to

 

DO

Years later, Benedict Cumberbatch gives life to it by performing it for Letters Live.

"Try and tickle something inside you, your “weird humor.” You belong in the most secret part of you. Don’t worry about cool, make your own uncool."

5. Losers and Closers, Vlog 286 by Casey Neistat

Vlogger/Filmmaker from New York Casey Neistat posts a new video on YouTube everyday. At first look, his videos look amateur but as you watch more and more of his films and after seeing all the different cameras he uses for a single video, you notice that he puts in effort to actually make his videos seem less professional.

This isn't a video on starting. It's actually about finishing and following through on a project, which I think is just as important as starting in the first place. On day 1, we may be as energetic and motivated as everyone else who decided to start on something, but if we can't sustain it, if we can't close the deal, then it will only go as far as one day of work allows.

Here's Casey Neistat on finishing what we started.

"You can never let your desire for perfection prevent you from finishing something that's good, because to finish something even imperfectly is to learn from it and then you can move on and get closer to perfection."

 

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The photo used on the cover image was taken by: Lum3n

Thanks!

Kevinn