“Do not say what great things you will do tomorrow. You do not know what will happen between now and then.” Proverbs 27:1 EASY
How many times have you put off something that you ought to do immediately? I bet you can’t count.
I can’t either.
When we plan, it usually has to span a series of days, weeks, months or years. With every new day we start, there are tasks we must do that day for the objective to be met. However, planning isn’t complete if we don’t add the conscious fact that it is by God’s grace that our plans will come to pass.
When God establishes our plans, it becomes our responsibility to fulfil them daily while asking for His help.
You have dreams, goals or assignments that you have probably put off till a later date due to reasons best known to you. But one possible reason is that the first step you are to take is too big to handle. It’s a long stride that will require a ton of effort on your end.
Why not identify the smallest activity you can do NOW?
I’ve realised that the easiest way to start something new is to make the first few steps almost effortless and less time-consuming. Even God had to make meditation (an almost effortless activity) his first task in the creation process before saying anything (Genesis 1).
I refer to these as “NOW tasks”. A NOW task is simply an activity that takes you less than a minute to complete. I find such short activities very effective for gaining momentum when you set big goals or have large projects to execute and are emotionally weighed down by their magnitudes.
For example, your goal is to write a new book. Automatically, you may think that the first step is to open your word processor on your laptop and start filling up the blank page, or completely write the first chapter. That’s a recipe for disaster.
With the possible occurrence of writer’s block, that task requires time to think and effort to put those thoughts on paper.
Why not start with a NOW task as small as creating a new folder on your laptop and saving it with the name “My New Book”. That task takes 3 to 10 seconds.
Then on day 2, your NOW task could be to open your word processor and save the blank document in that new folder you previously created.
On day 3, your NOW task could be to open the document previously created and on the first page, write, “The title of my new book is [insert the first title that comes to mind]”.
This is what momentum looks like. The idea is to help you get started by giving you small wins at every step. This is much better than telling yourself, “my first task is to complete the first chapter and I will do this within 6 days”. 6 days would most likely become 6 months if you’re not very intentional.
So what is that world-dominating project you want to start but have been putting off since last year? What NOW tasks can you set for yourself to gain momentum and have small wins?
NOW is the time to get started.
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