Day One

Like most people, I usually like to start fresh at the beginning of the year. There’s something magical about beginnings. Beginning of a new year, a new month, a new week or even a new day. It feels like anything is possible in a new beginning.

As long as it’s not used as another excuse to postpone beginning.

The new year this year fell on a Wednesday and I had decided that I would be taking some downtime with my family during the holidays this year until we all had to go back to our external obligations (school and work). Since neither started until today, I had the conundrum of trying to figure out what to do with my monthly projects. I knew I wasn’t going to start until we’re back to work, but then it would be the 6th of the month. Does that mean I should skip January altogether? I know it sounds silly when I write it like this but so many of us do this in so many ways.

I’ll start Monday, I’ll start tomorrow. Or even when we really want a specific goal, we put conditions: I’d like to start my new company but I need to have a logo first. Or my website has to be professionally designed first.

No it does not.

There are very few cases where there are a slew of must-have prerequisites. No one day is actually any more “special” than the other. The best time to start anything is: right now. Always.

Always.

Just think of it this way, if you start now, by next year, you’ll be 359 days into it. That’s definitely better than 0 days. By now, you will either have failed and moved on to something else or had small setbacks and conquered them all or you’ll be a huge success. In my opinion, any of the three scenarios is better than doing nothing.

I feel like when we’re scared of things or when inertia is strong, we just pile up reasons as to why it’s not a good time to start right now. When I woke up this morning, I reminded myself that this is day one. I can choose to start today. And if I try but fail, well guess what? Tomorrow is day one, too.

So, I woke up this morning and drew my little birdie. This means I will only have 25 days of birdies instead of 31. But it also means I will have 25 more birdies at the end of January than I would have if I decided I could only begin at the start of each month.

So if you’re like me and you’re pondering when’s a good time to start, the time is now.