It may seem like this is a typical year end post aiming to get people to set goals and resolutions for the New Year. It is not. It simply happens to be coming at a time when you will be seeing a ton of such posts. Yet, it may be just the right time for such a post since it addresses the exact same problem that most people making resolutions will face: not getting started.
Procrastination and fear will keep you from doing that which you should be doing. You may end up finding other excuses but everything will eventually boil down to fear. Fear of failure, fear of others' opinions, fear of the unknown and so forth....all of this will keep you where you are. There is on simple solution...just start! You've read this a million times and will probably read it a million times more. From where I sit though I keep seeing this around me and I'm going to rant about it a bit.
Be it in the corporate boardroom or the private bedroom, people just don't get started. They will spend weeks preparing Powerpoints or months telling themselves that they just don't know what they are doing. Or managers will continue their analysis paralysis where they need just that one more piece of information before getting started. Privately, folks will read one more article on that business they want to launch. They'll research endlessly what the proper laptop to buy is or where they need to rent an office. Yet they'll forget to build anything or find out whether anyone wants to pay them for it.
One of our secrets to success at Liquid Labs is that we've diligently avoided overanalysing and thinking there is a right time to do anything. If we have an idea, we go for it. We build a product and throw it out there. Is it barely useful crap at times? Sure, nothing is ever perfect and we prefer to get it in front of customers to see what they like and what they do not. We change the strategy all the time. Liquid Labs itself and what we do here has basically evolved on a monthly basis for almost six years. We've changed and adapted the model so many times that I could write a whole book just about that. Additionally, so much has changed around us that if we didn't adapt, we'd no longer be in business. Nevertheless, every time we wanted to try something new or change something, we just did.
We've also failed.....a lot. We've failed with products. We've failed building relationships within the corporate. We've failed with people we've hired and we've failed with people we weren't able to retain. We made wrong decisions when it comes to strategy and we misjudged management and how they would behave. Yet, the one thing that is intertwined with all of this is that we've been decision making machines. We simply decided and started, over and over again.
Ultimately, it's all about decisions. You need to make them all the time and if you want to change something about your situation.....be it your job, your company, your health or your personal relationships and so forth, I recommend that you just decide to start. If you aren't sure what or how, just start. Something...anything. Adapt as you go but don't wait any longer. Stop analysing, researching and optimising for success. You can do that all later. The first and hardest step is starting.
Some interesting links if you need more (but start first and then circle back):
The Art of Charm (podcast)