All of us have dreams. I have them too. One of them was to write a book. I finished writing it and it was finally published last month. It was a great feeling to see my creation in its flesh and blood. Well paper and glue to be more precise :-). I’ve always wanted to write a book but never got around to doing it. Till last year I always struggled with how to get things done.When I eventually got the book going I completed the actual writing in a matter of approximately 50 hours!. That’s roughly 6 days of productive time!. I looked back at astonishment at this and asked myself why on earth I was procrastinating this for 10 years! At first I did not get the right answer and I came up with all kinds of reasons including that I was lazy, no time, I did not have the right topic and many more. But I was not happy with these reasons as somewhere deep down I knew this was not what actually why I did not write it earlier. After many days it finally struck me the true reason why I did not write it earlier. I was trying to THINK BIG!
This may sound a bit strange at first but let me explain. When I mention to someone that I have written a book, the first reaction from most people is of amazement and sheer admiration. People think it’s a great achievement. While undeniably it’s a fantastic thing to do and the end result is something to be proud of. The actual process though is not actually as magnificent as it seems and anyone can write a book if they wanted to. I knew that I wanted to write a book but the sheer thought of doing it overwhelmed me so much that I kept avoiding it. The task seemed so uphill and insurmountable that I almost gave up the idea and the dream became well a distant dream!
I had a similar experience when I started training for my first 10 K run. The first day I started, I ran around 500 meters and was exhausted. Ran for a week and almost gave up. Tried to pick myself up and use my will power and gut to push myself. By end of week 2 I was able to run around 1.5 km before I was ready to drop dead. Once again I started asking myself how on earth I was going to run a 10 K when I can’t even run 1 km without getting exhausted. The 10 K just seemed like too big a task to achieve. Fast forward 6 months and I have now officially run my first 10K and clocked my best time ever. Wow. What a feeling that was when I crossed the finish line. I came 324th but I can assure you that I felt like a WINNER!
I realised that my problem was that I was trying to follow one of the philosophies that is taught today. Think BIG. What this was doing was that it was making my dreams so big that I felt so humbled even to think about it, let alone do anything about it.
So what was it that was common in the 2 feats I achieved? I wondered what could be common between an author and an athlete. Not much you would imagine. Here’s what I learnt from these experiences
Think Small
The first thing I realised is we need to change our thoughts to Think Small instead of Think BIG. One of the famous quotes from Tao Te Ching is Think Small and do Great things. The essence of this quote is to understand that all great things were achieved by starting small. Here’s an extract from the same book which I think sums up this very nicely
A tree as great as a man’s embrace springs from a small shoot;
A terrace nine stories high begins with a pile of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles starts under one’s feet.
So instead of having this big picture of “How am I going to write this 120 page book”, I changed my question to start with “What do I want to write about”. Once I figured this out I focussed on putting together the Title of the book, then the high level Chapter Titles, then the subtitles and so on. Finally I took each chapter and focussed on writing each page at a time. What this did was break down this HUGE task into small, simple and achievable tasks. Remember there’s no secret to becoming great. You do little things in a great way every day.
Just Decide
Most people don’t go the next step because we don’t know what to do. We get stuck in what is commonly known as analysis paralysis. This happens when we try to analyse a situation without taking any action. We want to weigh all the pros and cons, evaluate all the options available, compare all the alternatives and so on and so forth. What I realised is that while this gives you more information and knowledge it does not necessarily increase your chances of doing anything better. All that happens is we end up losing time which could have been used in taking some action. So when you want to do something, do some basic research, spend a reasonable time in evaluating options and then JUST DECIDE! Make a choice and take the Leap!
Just Do it.
I’m sure Nike knew what it wanted its fans to do in their life when they thought of their tag line. These 3 words are probably one of the most powerful words in your journey to success. You can do all the planning in the world but unless it gets translated into concrete action you won’t get anywhere with those plans. Here again I’m not suggesting that you jump into action without any thought. The point is, once you have taken that decision, step into action without constantly thinking about what you cannot do. Do what you can with what you have with where you are.
In pursuit of your dreams there would be things which you probably hate doing. So for example while training for the 10 K, there would be days when I had a late night and I would hate to get up in the morning and go for that run. But I knew that if I didn’t go early in the day I would get caught up in my daily routine and would not do it. So I used to sleep in my trainers which reminded me to get up and get on the road. The difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is very small. Successful people hate to do the same things unsuccessful people hate to do but they still do them because they have to not because they do or don’t want to. Ask yourself what can I do today towards my goal and then go and do it!
It’s OK to be clueless
Another thing which often stops us from taking action is that we feel we don’t know how to do it. Talk to anyone who you think is successful on how they did it and I can assure you that anyone that’s ever done anything worthwhile did not know how until after it was accomplished. So take comfort in the fact that even the people whom you and I consider “Greats” did not know how they were going to do something till they accomplished it. What they knew is what their next step was going to be. Once they have accomplished it,they were then in a position to tell you and me exactly how they did it. Not before it. The same is true for my book. When I started the journey I did not know how I was going to do it. However now that I have written it, I can walk you through the exact steps on getting your book published.
One of my favourite stories sums up everything that I have said above. Its the story about the Chinese Bamboo tree which teaches you the role of patience, perseverance and consistent action in your pursuit of success. Enjoy the video
