Today's Challenge:
Take a moment, step back from your concerns, and focus on one thing: You have one life to achieve everything you've ever wanted. Sounds simple, but when you really focus on it, let it seep into your consciousness, you realize you only have about 100 years to get every single thing you've ever wanted to do. No second chances. This is your only shot. Suddenly, this means you should have started yesterday. No more waiting for permission or resources to start. Today is the day you make the rest of your life happen. Write down one thing you've always wanted to do and how you will achieve that goal. Don't be afraid to be very specific in how you'll achieve it: once you start achieving, your goals will get bigger and your capability to meet them will grow.
Today's entry:
Cuts right to the chase, doesn't it? I'm good at big plans – unfortunately, I'm good at big, life-altering, 17-part plans. Those plans are great when you're neck deep in motivation, but once the waters recede, there's just not enough left to feed all of those projects.
So, last year, I made a commitment not to take on new plans, but to take a long, hard look at past plans. What really mattered to me that hasn't been done? What have I talked about for months or years and just never gotten around to?
I started with the small(ish) stuff, like catching up on 2-3 years of books I never got around to reading. That's coming along, and I'm feeling good about it (working on finishing #25). I finished some big things for my business (like incorporating), that I put off for years. I refocused – and simplified – my exercise program, committed to some diet changes I've been paying lip-service to, launched this blog, and cleared out my tea collection.
It's a strange list, and I doubt that Tea Hoarder is going to be a hit show anytime soon, but all of these projects had one thing in common – I sincerely wanted to finish them and just never did. I started small to build momentum, and it's working, but that means there are a couple of big projects waiting for me.
So, let's talk about the toughest one. For a long time, I've dabbled with learning another language. Then, a few years back, my wife and I decided to learn Chinese. Her family is from Taiwan, we wanted to travel, and I'm interested in Asian culture.
I can make a dozen excuses, but here's the core of the problem – it's insanely difficult. Learning any language is tough, but everything about Mandarin Chinese is foreign. My wife and I took a few classes, bought a mountain of resources (I've got no excuses there), and it took months to make some progress.
We eventually did make some progress (she more than me, honestly), but then life and a couple of obstacles got in the way. These things happen, but that critical next step of dusting it off and starting again hasn't happened.
This is one of Gladwell's 10,000 hour sort of tasks. You can't grab a sack of White Castle and 6-pack of Red Bull and learn a language in an all-night study session. Even a 30-day challenge is just the tip of the iceberg. We're talking about working every day for a year or more to make real progress.
That kind of long-term project paralyzes me, especially when I'm not completely clear on the tangible benefits. I can break it into steps, but even the individual steps seem insurmountable. So, it has to come down to the day by day:
- Practice 30 minutes/day (weekdays)
- Practice with my wife (weekends)
- Listen to podcasts while babysitting
A lot of language learning is listening, and that's something I can do while I watch my daughter at the end of the work day (and can't work in front of the computer). Ultimately, though, I've just got to get started again and stick to it. Consider this my official re-commitment.
