Most people will agree that often the most difficult part of a task or project is simply making a start, but why is this? Well, I eluded to the answer in my last blog entry and it’s simply because the mind sees the work ahead in its entirety and usually quite vaguely.
In my last blog I also spoke about ‘next step thinking’(NST). What NST achieves is freeing up the mind from the ‘tyranny of entirety’. Instead we are simply saying to the mind: “look…never mind the whole thing, just tell me what is the first thing you would do to get us started”. This establishes the all important next step and when you take it you will immediately discover that you have created ‘the magic of momentum’.
In many ways it’s a little bit like climbing a hill, once you get to that higher ground suddenly you get a much clearer outlook and often the best way forward can suddenly become obvious to you. Usually, with the sudden insight of the best way forward comes a rush of motivation as the means to untangle what seemed a perhaps overwhelming task or project suddenly becomes possible (if not easy) to accomplish and complete.
Once the mind sees that it can do the task in hand and once we have made a start then these two essential and powerful factors combine to create ‘the magic of momentum’. Once momentum has been established it’s essential to maintain it. This is best achieved by repeating the simple process surrounding ‘next step thinking’ and by identifying and taking the next step. And so it goes on with each subsequent step until the task or work is complete.
Essential to the effective practice of ‘next step thinking’ is the process of evaluation, indeed I believe evaluation is one of the corner stones of success in almost all fields of endeavour and I will talk about this in more detail in my next blog entry.