Start Something

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This morning when I woke up at 5:40 am, I was glad I went to cycling class last night. If I hadn't, instead of pulling the covers up tight, I'd be halfway through a class that started at 5:15 am, and required getting up at 4:50 am.

By going to cycling last night, I met my three classes/week goal, and I gave myself the gift of going to bed without setting an alarm, waking up naturally, and arriving early at my favorite coffee shop to sip café mocha and write.

It’s not easy to do today what you can put off until tomorrow. In fact, research shows we’re not very good at predicting how difficult it is to do something in the future. How many times have you been convinced you’ll be successful starting a diet on Monday, and so you indulge in the triple chocolate cake on Saturday? We think tomorrow, or the future, will be easier. It’s not.

At my YMCA the stairs have inspirational messages printed on the risers. One that captures my attention is “Tomorrow you’ll be glad you started today.” I thought about this quote as I sweated through last night’s cycling class. Today is yesterday’s tomorrow. I’m glad I started.

What does this have to do with retirement? Daniel Pink writes in his book Drive, “Upon comprehending that they [Boomers] could have another twenty-five years, sixty-year-old boomers look back twenty-five years—to when they were thirty-five—and a sudden thought clonks them on the side of the head. ‘Wow. That sure happened fast,’ they say. ‘Will the next twenty-five years race by like that? If so, when am I going to do something that matters? When am I going to live my best life? When am I going to make a difference in the world?’”

Time passes quickly. So what are you putting off until tomorrow? And next week? Month? Year? The next twenty-five years are going to pass faster than you can imagine. So if there’s still something you want to do with your life, do something today.

Author Elizabeth Gilbert says, “Any motion whatsoever beats inertia, because inspiration will always be drawn to motion. Frans Johansson of The Click Moment agrees, “By taking action, you open up a wide range of new ideas, possibilities, and connections.” By putting something into motion, you “create something for these forces to latch on to. You must actually do something, even if you are not sure where it will lead.”

The time to start is today. That’s it. Tomorrow you’ll be glad you started today.

Copyright 2019. Patrice Jenkins. All Rights Reserved.