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How to Start

by Michael Plank

Spoiler alert: you probably don’t need more information.

When we’re looking at doing something new – fitness, nutrition, lifestyle, spiritual journey – it’s natural to poke around a little bit and see what different approaches have to offer. It’s a responsible move, even.

But there’s a point at which you have enough information, and that point comes a lot earlier than most of us think.

We keep looking for more information anyway, but it’s because we think if we have more information, we’ll be more confident in our decision. If we’re more confident, then this new experience will be easier. If it’s easier, then we’ll be good at the thing we want to do before we start doing it.

But that, of course, is not the way it works.

What you need is repetitions. What you need is practice. More repetitions give you more experience. More experience gives you more confidence.

You are very likely not going to be good at something the first time you try it. You might not even be good at something the 20th time you try it. But if you think about the things you’re good at now, and look back at the first 20 times you tried those things, you probably weren’t very good at those things then either.

The way you get good at something is by doing that thing.

Lack of sufficient information is almost never the problem.

Lack of action is almost always the problem.

There is more information at your fingertips than ever in human history.

You don’t need to be an expert. You don’t need to be the best in the world. But you do need to send that message where you say “I need help.” You need to walk in the doors for the first time. You need to have that tough conversation that you’ve been putting off. You need to try something new.

You have to do the thing to be good at the thing.

Action always wins.