Start Anyway

Big undertakings often fail before they begin. You look at the mountain of work, get overwhelmed — and never start at all. The way out is a small self-deception: you begin "just a little," declare it invalid, no real attempt — and so you outwit the block that the whole mountain triggers in you. It works on a real mountain too: looking up paralyzes you. Better a small world, the first step. That one's doable. Then the next, also doable. And at some point you're at the top. Writing a book is no different.

The approach rests on three ideas:

• Shrink the world to the next step. The overwhelm lives in the whole, not in the step. Look up at the summit and you freeze; look only at the next foothold and it's doable — and then the one after that.
• Declare that it "doesn't count." Define the start as invalid, mere noodling, five minutes, no commitment. That disarms the inner critic and the fear of failing, because there's nothing official to fail at.
• The resistance sits at the threshold, not in the doing. The hard part is the crossing from zero to one. Engineer a start too small to wake any resistance, and momentum takes over from there.

The payoff isn't tricking yourself into anything. It's getting past the paralysis of the whole — not past every hesitation that's worth heeding. So do glance up now and then: not to stare at the summit, but to check you're still climbing the right mountain. Some overwhelm is a signal, not an obstacle.