We Start Out With Baby Steps Because They’re Effective

We all have our own journey of self-discovery, one that’s fueled by an insatiable itch to explore the world around us. For some, this means traveling the globe and voraciously reading about other cultures, while others might be content with a book on their favorite subject or tuning in to a documentary on Netflix. Whatever you choose is your prerogative.

What I have chosen to do is accumulate a vast array of knowledge about the world and its cultures, which I then apply to my own life. Some of that knowledge is built on old-school lessons, while some of it is born out of the latest research in mental health and psychology.

Most importantly, however, all the knowledge in the world doesn’t mean a thing if we don’t know how to interpret it and shape it into something valuable. If you want to grow as fast as possible, there are three things you need to do:

#1: Start small and simple.

#2: Don’t ask a lot of questions.

#3: Use baby steps because they’re effective.

I learned these three things back when I was an undergraduate and I still find myself applying them to the majority of my projects, whether it be the ones in school or the ones outside of it. I do this for two reasons: First, because it works and second, because I don’t want to dilute the impact of what I have to say. After all, if you start with a big idea that ultimately never gets done, then you’re just asking for trouble.

An example of this can be seen with my first private practice, which was an attempt to do a self-help book on coping with an eating disorder because I had struggled with that issue extensively. While I had the big idea of writing a book, it never got done. Why? Because I didn’t realize how difficult it was to publish one and I had no idea how to begin selling it even if I ever did write it. As a result, the project ended up being shelved before I could even get started.

This was my first lesson on how to start small and simple, and I have never forgotten it.

This also applies to my second project, which is also a self-help book but on the subject of mental health. You see, when I wrote the first one, I had a lot of complaints about the way that other people had approached coping with mental illness: That they didn’t take their issues seriously, or that they were just plain weird. By that time in my life, I had learned several methods of dealing with such things and it was very clear to me that there was nothing wrong with being unorthodox.

In that case, I was able to write a book starting with the big ideas and then building on them. All in all, it ended up being quite a nice little project.

Third, I know that if I do things my way and don’t dilute my message, then it’ll be something that works well for me. If you want to grow fast as possible in any area of life, there are two things you need to do:

#1: Start small and simple.

#2: Don’t ask a lot of questions.

And the third? It’s really just baby steps because they work.

If you go into something, anything, with the endgame in mind and no idea how to get there, then you’re asking for trouble. Begin by asking yourself, “What is the simplest thing that I can do to get my idea out there?” That is the first step. Then complete and repeat it.

The purpose of starting small and simple is that you don’t want to complicate matters for yourself if things go south. This allows you to learn from your mistakes instead of trying to play catch-up because things didn’t work out as well as they could have. This also allows you to focus on your original goal without wondering what could have happened if you did things differently.

On the other hand, if you start small and simple and ask a lot of questions along the way, you’ll be able to take advantage of all the knowledge you have and make it work for your endgame. For example, I did a lot of writing on self-help books in my early career because it had come out naturally for me. Whether it was because I was always telling my friends about techniques that worked in college or because I saw how others were doing it, I knew how to do it consistently.

Along with this came a lot of research into the massive business books at that time that were published by Tyndale House, who was quite large at the time.

In my early writing career, I made a habit of reading two of their books a month and then writing down any advice that I found particularly useful. Why? Because I had done quite a bit of research into self-help books, but not enough to give me any credibility unless I could prove it with facts. Also, what had become clear from my first book was that I liked the idea of publishing something on my own terms, which meant that owning my own company was an excellent way to do that.

As such, once the time came for me to start my own business, I applied all of those skills to it and became quite good at it.

What is the lesson to take away here? The first is to start small and simple, the second is that there are more questions to ask than the number of answers you have, and finally, that all baby steps are effective as long as you keep your end goal in mind. If this sounds familiar and feels good to you, then it’s time for some growth.

Photo by Nathan Rupert/ Unsplash.com

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Tags: growth, learning, psychology, running a business, successful people, success tips, success stories, writing advice · Posted in Uncategorized · Comments Off

Tuesday May 30th, 2018 · No Comments

Permalink Your browser does not support HTML5 video. Digital media goes back to the dawn of the Internet boom (the 1990s) and was called “Digital Pixels”. It is a sound idea. The problem is that digital pixels are so cheap they are disposable. Let me explain what digital media actually is and why it needs to be treated as more than throwaway pixels (and the answer may surprise you).

Conclusion: Digital media needs to be treated with care or you will be wasting your time and ending up with a pile of throwaway pixels. Digital media is an incredibly sound idea, but it faces the problem of being disposable as it is so cheap. There is so much of it that it lends itself to being thrown away easily, especially if you have an advertising budget that allows you to spend thousands on ads almost at a whim.

In other words, digital media is the wild west when it comes to how a lot of people use digital media and don’t change their approach even after they see results.