Every action counts

Of course, you do not always feel up to it. It does not matter what you have set your mind on doing, it can seem as high as a mountain to climb. Every single person has had moments in which they delayed their actions up to a point that the action to be taken seemed to large to overcome. This could be as small as a phonecall or opening the mail. In our minds, we make it count a lot heavier than it actually does.

The funny thing is, whether you do it or not, that does not even matter. All the weight put on it, is put there by you. You are the only person to be able to change your perspective on a situation or do something about it. This is not meant as a therapeutic advice, but very practical indeed.

People very often have the idea that I do not procrastinate at all, that I set my goals and live by them. I have small to-do-lists laying around and love ticking off what I have finished. This does not mean that this is the remedy for me. Some of the things on the list grow taller and taller the longer they have been on the list. Some items I just remove after some time as I do not see it happening anymore. And still I am proud to say that I get most things done, and even relatively on time. Is that due to my checklists? No, it is more due to an attitude that I adopted a long time ago.

I wanted to be good in everything, preferrably the best, and in order to reach that goal, I made sure that I worked effectively and timely. Reaching goals and deadlines well on time was a goal in itself. This resulted in a habit that I still profit from. But when people ask me where my drive comes from, it is no longer from that childhood wish to reach perfection. Perfection is an illusion, nothing more. Reaching goals still fills me with a sense of completion, but I have also experienced repeatedly that the opposite does not work.

So how do I do it? By diminishing the task at hand. Not the importance of the task, but the portions of it. Usually we tend to set a huge goal e.g. going to the gym three days a week (when you're a couch potato) or improving the culture of your company. Then where do you start? This seems impossible. When you take small steps like first talking to your employees to see what they think the culture of the company is, the goal is within reach again. Small actions take less courage, but count just as much. Even five minutes a day can make a difference.

Recently, I joined a coaching challenge to post at least one message a day. Per message you receive a point, per share 0.2. Today was extremely busy and loud. The neighbours are renovating and there was constant noise, impossible to work in. Still, I had set my mind to writing at least one post per day. That I had already earned six points, was not of importance. With this, I can proudly say that I have managed to write my post for the day even though I was absolutely not feeling up to it.