Here I am again. Sitting slouched on the couch. The Big Bang theory is on and there is a rock in my stomach from the double quarter pounder, fries, and coke I (ashamedly) put down between chuckles from sarcastic remarks coming from the TV. It’s the third night in a row this week I’ve had something terrible for dinner and stared at a screen and telling myself I should be doing more.

If you’re anything like me, you’re fantastic at procrastinating. You also hate that you do it. Even as I’m writing this, I’m struggling to give it my full attention. Countless times now from the first paragraph until now I’ve stopped to check Facebook, make sure my Ollama server is running, and even ask it to help me write this, though, I’m not going to use it’s template. Hell, just now I stopped after that last sentence to contemplate Googling “How to write an article”

I say all this to get to the point of, whatever it is that you want to do, just do it. Now, I know how cliche that sounds and I’m sure the other millennials are picturing the Shia LeBeouf video from 2015, but seriously, just do it! (Or a few smaller things first to get the ball rolling)

The Big Thing in Pieces

Now I can’t give you any good reasons to believe me as I’m just another guy on the internet but, there have been proven studies showing that just getting a few things done can really get the ball rolling and the momentum going.

Consider this from Psychology Today:

Motivation itself can be quite fickle, and as much as we would like to control it — like any feeling — we really cannot. If it was that easy, instead of reading this article, you would just flip a switch.

Being motivated doesn’t always just happen. Sometimes we have to build ourselves up to. I like to relate it to other aspects of my life. I didn’t know how to play guitar well until I practiced the little things first. I didn’t know how to code (and still kind of don’t) until I built some very small simple projects first. I don’t tend to get things done if I don’t knock out the small things first.

My preferred way to do this is by taking the big thing and breaking it up in to smaller things, picking the easiest one, and doing it first. To put a real life example to this, I recently had a car that sat for months without being used. When trying to start it, there were quite a few problems and I began spiraling in to a list of expensive repairs that would have to be done. I effectively decided the car was done and we wouldn’t use it anymore (extreme I know).

Once I had some time to calm down and think through it, I began building a list of what was wrong. I knew the car needed a battery, and that was simple fix. Once I replaced it and the car was running normally again, I was able to ride that high and proceed to fix the A/C, and replace the speakers! By the time I ran out of steam, it was like we had a new car again.

Writing this article is my way of getting the momentum going on trying to make myself better. I’ve never been a writer but I’ve always romanticized the idea and here I am starting. Doing the thing.