This week marks my twelve-year anniversary of living in Catalunya. When I moved here, one of my big goals was to get in shape. I was coming out of a bad mental and financial place, and in the process, I’d put on 60 pounds of weight. 

Living in Spain on its own helped tremendously as the lifestyle is much healthier that where I was living in the US. 

But the “trick” that allowed me to lose the weight I had gained in a matter of months, was because I made a commitment each day to walk every day for ten minutes in a straight line. The logic: in order to get home, I had to turn around which resulted in building a 20-minute walking habit which within a matter of weeks turned a 20-minute running habit. 

When approaching hard things, chunk down your big goals into manageable bites as consistency trumps intensity. 

In addition to starting smart by starting small, here are a few additional ideas that either resonated with me or worked for me in the past that may speak to you too. 

Find your easy button

I love this idea from my friend Maria Urkedal York, and how she used it to publish her first ever online article which got featured in Forge and syndicated in Elephant Journal. 

In short, Maria quit her job six months ago after twenty years of teaching to pursue her dream of coaching and writing. Ideas filled her head. She was excited. But then more ideas filled her head. Then more. And then more. Over time, all the ideas running around paralyzed her from taking actions on her dreams.

Out of coincidence, however, she heard a talk by one of her coaches about always looking for an “easy button” when approaching hard tasks to take the first step, and she thought occurred to her  — “What if my ‘easy button’ for my first article is writing about the importance of having an easy button?”

When approaching hard tasks, like Maria said — 

“When you’re stuck, the goal should be movement — not perfection.”

Identify the easiest way to take the right first step. 

Ask yourself what would this look like if it were easy. 

Identify an “easy button.” 

Just don’t do it (yet)

My friend Niklas Göke is starting a new blog, Seth Godin style on his website with daily thoughts. I love everything Nik does including his recent instalment entitled — “Refuse to do it until it’s easy.”

In short, there is absolutely nothing wrong with waiting until the hard thing you want to do becomes easier. For Nik, it was running an online course. He thought about it for a few years, but the idea overwhelmed him. That is, until one day it didn’t and he knocked out the course easily as he’d given himself time for his dots to connect. 

We may feel like everything we want to do needs to be done today. 

But they don’t. 

Like Nik said — 

“Pay for convenience by abstaining. Refuse to start until it’s easy. Wait until downhill is obvious. Then, get on your sled and enjoy the ride.”

Learn something new in the completely opposite direction

One interesting side-effect I’ve noticed from studying Spanish and Catalan is it’s impossible to learn a language if you aren’t present. 

• You have to listen to each word someone says if you want to understand them.
• You have to think before you speak in order to make sure you are using the right sentence structure. 

Neither of these things will happen if your head is in the clouds.

This may sound odd for gearing up to move heavy things, but the logic behind it is simple: if you throw yourself into something else that makes you present it frees up the headspace for the unconnected ideas in your head to better connect. 

We can all think of a time, our “breakthrough” came to us while in the shower or out for a walk. For me, studying Spanish when I can’t seem to write in English does the trick. 

Find your outlet. 

Do something that brings you back to the land of the living. 

All progress is made in the present.

Think “who” not “how”

For the last few years, ever since I got into this whole online creator world, I’ve wanted to do two things: write a book and record a storytelling course.

The primary reason for wanting to do both of these things is because the idea of them scared the life out of me. Plus, I think the idea for the book is a good one and I’d love to see more courses that focus on improving valuable skills over the flood of ones geared towards growing our bank accounts. 

I’m a simple thinker and I try to get my point across as fast as possible. The idea of writing 50,000 words when I struggle to write 500 paralyzed me. As a guy with a stutter, the same goes for recording an online course as I hate seeing myself stuck on a word. 

The last few months, however, I’ve made headway in both areas and the reason for this is simple — I’m not doing either of them alone.

Helping a client write his own book and contracting a friend to help me with my own has made this once hard thing so much easier.

The same goes for creating a course. Instead of talking into a screen alone, Niklas Göke and I teamed up to share our best story-telling tips — which made the content not only more engaging, but so much better as the two of us do things very differently.

If you’re stuck somewhere — anywhere — instead of pushing through on your own, think “who” not “how” and ask for help to share the weight.

The best things in life are rarely a solitary pursuit — and this includes our individual goals.