Action

The first element of the HabitSystem is Action. Without Action, no change can happen. While this may seem so obvious it doesn’t merit special consideration, the lack of Action is exactly what causes failure in attaining goals.

When people try something new, it is human nature to want to be perfect right from the get-go. They spend time looking for the perfect guide; they want to avoid making mistakes at all costs. Do you remember the beginning of this book? I wanted you to commit to creating a Journal to keep track of your daily reading for the next month. Maybe you decided that, Today is not the right time to start because of reason X, or you were thinking that, Tomorrow is also a good day to start. If you thought something along those lines, you exhibited the exact symptoms I am explaining here. I hope you have continued tracking your daily reading. If that’s the case, it means you have taken Action—which is great. I just want to remind you of the importance of Action.

Let’s continue with the problem most people have when it comes to doing new things. Instead of taking Action, most people wait for the right moment, when the conditions are ripe and they have all the knowledge they need. Their intentions may be good, but you know what? There is a big problem with this approach.

First of all, perfection is impossible—in any endeavor. It’s not real. When striving for perfection, it is the striving that is important because we all know that perfection does not exist. The German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss put it perfectly like this: “It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.” This notion—we call it “process-mindset”—is covered in Element #3: Daily Repetition.

Secondly, trying to be perfect is the number one reason for not starting at all. People wait for the perfect moment, the perfect conditions. They procrastinate and say things like, When I buy the perfect workout attire, I will start. When they finally buy their overpriced workout clothes, they say, When I have a perfect workout partner, I will go to the gym. People are very persuasive and imaginative in finding reasons not to start. They convince themselves that no start is better than an imperfect start.

Most people want to start with the perfect training schedule, they want to start with perfect nutrition. They read up on the perfect balance of cardio and strength, on the importance of interval training, they buy vitamin supplements and juicers. And then they make elaborate schedules: what to eat, when to work out.

What they fail to realize is that this is not real-life thinking. In real life, starting from scratch just means you are a beginner. As a beginner, what is more important than how you do something is that you actually do something. Once you get going, learning will inevitably take place. If your start wasn’t that great, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to learn how to improve. Over time your brain will figure out what works and what does not work.

Look at anybody who has achieved something in life. Nobody started out perfectly; there was adversity along the way. No photographer started out with the perfect camera and equipment sitting unused in his lap—no, he started with one click—maybe his first photo was grainy or out of focus. Maybe he forgot to take the cap off!

Every start is sloppy and slow. But are you going to let imperfection stop you? Or can you accept the fact that starting—and then keeping at it—is the only thing that matters? I’m going to repeat myself because this is so important: the biggest problem is that people never start because they want to start perfectly. There is no perfect start!

Starting creates energy, and the desire to be perfect can be paralyzing. Instead of starting with perfection as the goal, look at beginnings in a more positive light: starting anything, a new skill or a new habit, forces our brains to start working. Fortunately, problem solving is one of the brain’s primary tasks—in some ways, our brains are always searching for things to solve.

You will encounter problems when you start anything new—but these unanticipated obstacles are part of learning. The exciting part is that your brain will start working and searching for ways to solve the problem and turn adversity into advantage.

If you are still stuck in the idea of beginning with perfection, none of this gets to happen. You may sketch out possible obstacles, but you can never be sure whether things will turn out as you predicted. You are stuck in the land of what if?

Look, I do not propose that you go in unprepared. Being prepared has its place and is not the same as being perfect. What I propose is adopting the strategy of taking the middle ground. A strategy with just enough preparation, but not so much that you get bogged down by getting everything right in the beginning.

You may have already heard about the 80-20 principle—the gist is that 20% of the effort and energy you put into something is what will create 80% of your net gains, meaning your success. As you prepare to begin anything, just make an educated guess about how to start. You may not get everything right in the beginning, but the whole point is that you don’t need to. Get the core things right; don’t look into the future and try to predict all the obstacles that may or may not happen. Just start!

Unnecessarily long preparation robs you of learning time. Most people fail to consider this. If you spend two weeks preparing, that’s two whole weeks during which you could have learned by doing.

If you want to try rock climbing, do the preparation you need to do. Yes, it’s a dangerous endeavor in which you could be injured or die. In that case, a high level of preparation is advised. But in most cases, starting with little preparation does not incur any conceivable risks.

Let’s look at an example that really demonstrates the value of starting rather than waiting for perfection: if you want to learn how to write, the best idea is to just start by putting pen to paper. Sure, you could begin by reading about how to write and then start. However, writing is a skill that gets better when you actually write. The doing is more instructive than the knowing. And in starting to write, you simultaneously learn about how to write. You start to sense what you know and what you don’t know. You learn what works for you and what doesn’t in ways you never could have done by merely reading about how to write. This way, you’re improving your writing while learning more about it at the same time.

Part of the process is to value the importance of learning by doing. Your brain is designed to improve and to help you when you learn something. You will reap the rewards once you start. So, get out there, do not procrastinate, prepare a little, and—Go!