How do I Start

Whether it is a new job, wanting to learn a new skill, or a new project in your life (like writing a blog 😊), usually the same question pops out – how do I start? From the beginning, someone clever could say. However, this feeling of overwhelming freeze and non-action comes in, with which I am remarkably familiar. You know in your guts that the journey you are planning to go on is good for you, but the amount of work and things you don’t know, scares you to bits. In these moments I keep repeating to myself something that I used to say often to my good friend from Ukraine, when she was building a new life in Poland – you need to go slow, STEP by STEP. This became my mantra and kept me calm in last months, when so many new things are happening, that sometimes I can feel my brain scramble.

As much as I love planning, usually my ideas are not well-designed project plans, but rough sketches that take shape as I go – STEP by STEP. I have gone through quite a few more and less crazy ideas that I tried to implement (this blog is already my second one 😊) and usually I follow similar path, so I have now designed a small plan for myself on how to start.

1. Intention – what is it I want to do? This very often is just an idea or vision I have and want to start working on – never specific, but a thing that I could describe in one sentence that usually starts with “I want to…”

2. High-level plan – I love thinking through the mind-maps, so my high-level plans on what I should be doing, usually look something like the one above. I list the areas I need to cover and what are the major tasks within the areas and as I am drawing it, this helps my thinking. Usually at the end of this process, one or two aspects will show themselves as the ones that will need to be worked on first.

3. Question session – this is when I list the questions I would ask someone who wants to do what I am planning on doing – what is the idea?, what do you need to get there?, how will it look like?, who are you targeting it to? and one of the most important ones – why would this fail? and why this is not a good idea? These two last questions act as catalyst for rethinking if this is really something that I should be doing right now. And if the answer is still “yes, I want to do that”, the answers also show me the aspects I need to concentrate on to be successful.

4. Where do I start – I go back to mind map and select the area that I should start working on and select the first task, which is an obvious one to kick-off my project (if there are few, I am choosing one that seems like a good one to give me energy to keep going). Most of the time, I need to break it down to much smaller tasks, so it is manageable and not that scary. In the end, writing one course outline is something that I can do right?

5. Actual work – this is buckle up and start the journey moment. I schedule myself time every day for working on the project. Usually, it is not huge amounts at the beginning, but is consistent and ensures a little progress each day. Often the speed and intensity of the project picks up as it gets going, so the time commitment grows, but at least by then I usually already have a better idea on what I am working towards and would deprioritize other things.

In each project, there are phases of enthusiasm, but also there will always be doubt, obstacles and everyday grind, which is what can stop us in our tracks or discourage a bit.

At these moments, I need to go STEP by STEP – sometimes it means doing an absolute minimum and sometimes it even means taking a step back to see what I lost on the way, but always it is worth a journey. This is my new one and I am excited to see where it will take me.