Hipster Challenge: Start Where It’s Easy

This week, we have a challenge for you: get started…..

So you want to do something. It doesn’t matter what that something is right now. Whenever you want to do something, you need to start doing it – right? How do you start things? Better yet, how do you think about starting things? Do you dwell on the hard parts? Do you think about all that you will have to do to finish? Do you end up putting things off and not getting started after all?

If so, we all do that. We all have visions and plans for things we really, really want to do – in our personal, professional or dream lives. Big plans. Small plans. The thing is, to get these plans under way, we need to fuel them with energy. We need to put the proverbial pedal to the metal. Without energy or fuel, our visions and plans stay in our heads. Over time, our heads get full of visions and plans we never gave energy to. They just hang out – haunting us a little with those annoying “well, what-if’s”….

Mark Twain once famously said, “the secret of getting ahead is getting started”. In this post, Hipster challenges you to make like Mark Twain and get started. Let’s take a look at three action steps for getting started.

1. Make a List of All the Challenges

Start by making a list of all the challenges you foresee in getting your goal accomplished. Have it out on paper. What’s worrying you? More importantly, what’s stopping you? Fill your paper up. Don’t hold back. What’s nagging you about an idea? What are you secretly worried about? Be totally honest.

Once you’ve got all the potential challenges you may face inked, take that piece of paper and rip it up. Really – do it. Why? One word: potential. You just made a list of potential challenges. They aren’t real. They are possibilities. They have no roots. They aren’t a certain thing. They actually mean nothing.

2.Make a List of All the Real Benefits

Now, take another piece of paper and get ready to write. Make a list of all the real benefits you would get from taking a certain action or following through with a plan. Not the potential things that may be awesome if all goes well. What are real benefits from getting started? For example, even if you fail – you’ll have the knowledge that you tried. That’s a benefit, for sure. What else? What will you learn from taking action? How will you feel? How will others think of you? Write all the good stuff down. Keep this paper close.

3.Start the Easy Way

Now, find a way to get started. When you want to get in shape, you don’t start deadlifting right away, do you? Don’t try it. Start by taking a walk, right? Or getting decent sneakers? Or opting for some carrots instead of chips. Start the easiest way possible. Find simple ways to start working toward your goals. Keep getting started. Once you go with carrots instead of chips, you can move on to eating more salads. Once you start walking, you can start walking faster. Add arm weights. Whatever works for you. Keep getting started. It’s a process. Every day is a new start…a new opportunity to live the life of your dreams. Revisit your paper of benefits again and again.

Key Takeaway for Everyone:
Don’t collect a lifetime of what-if’s. Collect a lifetimes of I-did’s! Go for it. Get started. Find ways to move toward your dreams. Find easy paths. Dig in. Do it. Don’t pay attention to potential challenges. Potential means nothing. Stay firmly rooted within the reality of your situation, your goals and your dreams.

Key Takeaway for Real Estate Investors:
If you want to invest in real estate, go ahead and go for it. You don’t need to learn the ins and outs of house flipping, rehabbing and short sales to master the game of real estate. You can get help, you can start small, you can take, as we call it at Hipster, “the path of least resistance.”

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