Action comes first: One Day, or Day One

One Day, or Day One.

Awesome. How many times have we said, “Oh I will do it on Monday” or “I will do it later/tomorrow/insert relevant time period here.” I think as humans we like black and white, we like a nice round number or for things to fall nicely in alignment with the Gregorian calendar. I couldn’t start on Sunday because work starts on Monday and it is my day of rest. I can’t start today because I have not slept enough, or I haven’t eaten enough, I have too much work to do, I need this, I need that etc etc etc.

The conditions will never be optimal. Never. The sooner we come to terms with this, the better we will be in the long run.

"One Day, or Day One."

It is no easy feat to go against your instinct and head, the voice in your head telling you “well if we just get X then we will be ready to go” But ask yourself what the worst that can happen is. It might flop, so what? try something else. Iterate, learn, iterate again. There is no winning formula, AI is not going to do it for you, even with the tools and knowledge it will give you.

YOU need to act.

Now the caveat here of course is that the above advice does not mean you cut corners, especially if you are doing something safety critical, that is not what i am saying here.

Define the goals. Reflect throughout the year regularly and course correct as needed. Reflect on 3 questions:

1. What went well?

2. What did not go so well?

3. What lessons have I learned from this?

This is not a test, this is a chance to sit down, write it down, look back through your photos, what made you smile, laugh, evoke sadness, joy, anger. What can you learn from that? The universe owes you no favours; it is a harsh and brutal place that rewards effort and punishes inaction. Action does not mean you need to meditate for 4 hours every day and drink the milk of a unicorn to do anything meaningful; It is highly, highly personal.

It might be that you want to read more, or become more confident, spend time with friends, advance in your career, complain less. Whatever it may be, write it down. You are not doomed to an eternity of living up to those goals. Goals change, people change, environment changes, so we evolve, we get better.

“1% better each day” - James Clear

You've got this.

RCP