The beginning

Daily Gratitude: “The beginning is the most important part of the work.”

Newton’s First Law of Motion states that an object at rest will stay at rest, and an object in motion will stay in motion ….unless acted upon by an unbalanced external force.

So it’s not surprising that nothing will or can happen if you don’t do anything. You remain an object at rest. If you want something to happen, you have to put some external force into play – in other words, you have to get started.

Once you begin doing something, your enthusiasm builds and you are no longer trying to figure out how you can quit. Something in you (maybe it’s just a dopamine hit) feels good that you’ve “finally” started doing that thing you’ve put off for so long.

I’ve found this to be true even when doing housework or other tasks that aren’t very interesting to me. It’s the fact that I’m actively moving and I’m not sure my mind cares about the “what” as long as I keep moving. I end up getting chores done this way.

If this is a project you are interested in, the joy of getting started is even greater. You need to feed off that energy to keep things going.

Also try to imprint the memory of how you feel doing it when it’s exciting. That way you can call on that imprinted emotion when you’re at rest again. It will entice you to start moving again. It’s a game to trick your mind but it works.

Daily Gratitude: “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

This is mostly true. But it’s not the whole story. Many of our fears are irrational. Take my fear of making phone calls for example. I’ve written about that before (a lot .. because it is irrational). I understand that making a phone call won’t make me unpopular or hated or have bad people try to scam me.

Sure that understanding helps but it doesn’t take away the fear. I have to see people’s faces and watch their body language to trust what they are saying. That comes from something in my childhood and despite a lot of intense IFS work, I don’t know what that part is protecting me from. But that’s ok too.

The concept behind the quote is true. And it’s interesting it’s from Marie Curie. She worked with radium (I believe) and worked very hard to understand it so others could too. She seemed to have no fear. Only a yearning to learn.

What if instead of caring what other people think, we adopted the motto of “Yearn to Learn”. You know I dislike cute sayings. But I couldn’t resist.

Make a list of your fears
Do the 5 whys on each – why do you fear it and then why to each deeper level
Ask are these fears rational?
If so, what can you do to overcome them
If not, can realizing that it isn’t rational make you fear it less? It may or may not (like mine) but I would imagine many of them will be a lot less powerful.

Try it. Make your list.