But starting isn’t enough. Yes, it’s absolutely necessary at the beginning, but once you start, something else becomes essential in accomplishing what you had in mind when you began.
Many people have New Year’s resolutions, and they have the motivation to start. That’s great. But starting on January 1, and giving up within a week, doesn’t help you accomplish anything. Instead, it often just leads to guilt, or the reluctance to try again. Starting is good, but after starting out, the question changes to, How long am I going to stick with it?
Although we’ll never accomplish what we set out to without starting, neither will we accomplish anything if we don’t stick with it. This is the hard part, but is absolutely essential.
The good news is that over time, as we regularly do whatever we’ve chosen to do, it will start to become habitual–it becomes a habit. And once it becomes a habit, it gets increasingly easier to continue to do what we started.
So start. Take the first step. And once that’s done, take another…and another…and another.