When is the perfect time to start a business, lose weight, start investing, become an artist, travel the world, or create the life you have always wanted?
When you have enough money?
When you have enough time?
When the kids are grown up?
When the economy is just right?
When you’ve taken enough classes?
The truth is: the perfect time to start never comes. If you want to change your life, you have to just do it.
Universal Law
By some strange law of the universe, we tend to fill every unplanned minute of every day with something; leading to the illusion that we don’t have enough minutes in our day. By the same token, we tend to find things to buy with every extra dollar that comes into our pocket; leading to the illusion that we don’t have enough money.
If something is important to you, don’t wait, just do it. Don’t wait until you have enough money, start investing now. Don’t wait until you have extra time, start exercising now. Don’t wait to do something nice for your spouse, do it now.
You Will Adapt
Think back to the last time you had a major shakeup in your life, such as losing a job or having to take an emergency trip somewhere. Did your world fall apart? Probably not.
Think back to the last time you had to come up with emergency money to fix your car or pay for medical expenses. You probably found the money somehow. Why can’t you find the money now?
We’re incredibly resilient creatures capable of adapting ourselves to almost any situation. Why is it that we will always adapt ourselves when our job requires us to work extra hours or come in on the weekend, but we find it hard to carve out extra time for ourselves?
Priorities
Human beings are strange. We’ll drop money left and right at Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, the movie theatre, and at restaurants; but when it comes time to find an extra $100 a month to invest or start a business, all of a sudden we’re broke. The bottom line is: if it’s important to you, you’ll find the money.
The same goes for our time. We can always seem to find time to watch American Idol, or chat with a friend for hours; but when it comes time to exercise, all of a sudden we’re out of time.
If You Need Something Done, Give it to a Busy Person.
Why is this so true? Some people just seem to find time while others procrastinate.
Leap of Faith
I used to work as an Inflight French Interpreter for Continental Airlines, where I learned a lot about human nature. I heard the same story so often from flight attendants that it became predictable: “When I was hired, I told myself that I’d only fly for two years; and thirty years later, here I am!”
I realized that there were two types of flight attendants: those who loved their job and planned on doing it until they retired, and those who hated it, but couldn’t bring themselves to quit.
I found myself in the latter category after I had been flying for six years. I wanted to get involved with the film industry, but I couldn’t because I was never in one spot for more than a week. I kept telling myself that I would quit when I had saved enough money, or when I had found a job in the film industry.
Every year, I made a little more money, got a little better schedule, and it got a little harder to quit. Unfortunately, I was also a little more unhappy, and didn’t have any more money in savings. I always thought that I was different that those who were miserable but couldn’t quit; but I realized that I was becoming one of them.
The day I left Continental, it took everyone by surprise. I didn’t have a job lined up and I didn’t have anything saved; but I was finally taking control of my life. Within a few months, I had landed my first movie job.
How to Take Action
Do it Early
If it’s important to you, do it early. That means if exercise is important to you, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. If you’re writing a novel, it’s best to have written most of your weekly pages by Tuesday of each week.
The reason is: the later it gets, the more likely you are to be distracted and avoid your task. The best time to get something done is in the morning when everyone else is still half asleep. The later it gets, the more phone calls you get; and after five, the temptation to go hang out with your friends instead of exercising is immense.
For most people, Monday is the most productive day of the week. Each day thereafter gets decreasingly productive until they’re daydreaming their way through Friday.
If you want to get something done, do it early.
Make it a Routine
Once something becomes a habit, it becomes almost effortless. If something isn’t a habit, it takes a lot of energy to bring yourself to do it.
Therefore, it’s best to try to do your important activities at the same time every day in order to make it a habit. If you have to pick a new time for your important task every day, you’ll eventually burn out and just skip it all together.
Learn to Say No
In today’s hyper-information age, it’s easy to let minor emergencies take over your life. Consider how much time you spend answering email, returning phone calls, surfing the web, text-messaging, reading the paper, watching 24-hour cable news, or running errands.
All of these tasks can wait until you have finished your important project for the day. Otherwise, they can easily eat up all of your time until you have finished the day without finishing your project.
Learn to say no to some of these demands on your time. Not all phone calls and emails need an immediate response. The most important thing is that you finish what is important to you.
Just Do It
Don’t wait for the perfect time, because it will never come. Life is imperfect and unpredictable. If you want to do something, you have to just do it before you wake up thirty years later and nothing has changed.
With the cost of homes being over priced and out of step with middle America’s paycheck you need to take advantage of the market. You just need to learn how to obtain the home at a discount like the professional investors do.
The perfect time is now. If I believe that my idea is good and unique, I will act it now and try to see if it is working for me or not.
Great old-school post. I am a big believer in Just Do It (well I am in advertising, and love the Nike message). In my previous career I was surrounded by staff who were waiting for the right time to make their move – to leave, start a business, improve their health etc. I am the only one who actually Just Did It. I made an audacious move to change careers and buy into an ad agency, quit my job and have never looked back. Four years later I have a successful business and live a great life. My old colleagues are either still there grumbling and waiting or have been fired. Its too easy to make excuses and never realise that today is the right time to follow your dreams.
Hi Brian,
I agree with what you’re saying. I just came back from Life Directions at Peak Potentials and we did a demonstration where you take big rocks first, gravel second, sand third and water lastly and stuff them all into a glass jar.
Everything fits as long as you put the big rocks in first …… but most of us tend to do the reverse. We put our big rocks last. Those big rocks are the things you talked about – starting a business, time with loved ones or time to exercise.
To putting the big rocks first,
Stephen Martile
Personal Development Made Simple
http://www.stephenmartile.com
[…] an early riserTake a break.Eliminate distractionsThe right attitude counts. Become positive.Start now and avoid stressLearn to manage kids and parents within the Sandwich GenerationEnjoy what you have instead of what […]
This relates to a post I just wrote on Monday, because you have to live life and stop worrying about this, that, and the other, often which you can’t control anyway. You can’t get mad at anyone else except yourself if you succumb to your own fears and don’t proceed.
My post can be seen here:
http://www.mynewhustle.com/index.php/hustlers-inspiration-live/
again a great topic,you are right morning is the best
time to start with.
pls keep on writing.
rgds
amit kapoor
I’m greatly impressed on how you have showed the value of perfect timing. I need this. I want to get out of the rat race.
I think focus has allot to do with it. I find if I focus on 1 or 2 things a day or even in a week I get more done. Focusing on to many variables leads to distraction and not getting anything done. Being Focused helps you spend the time you have more effectively and makes you start and finish a task.
The flip side of this is knowing what you want to start. I am struggling with finding a good topic for a new website. I am so busy looking for the “perfect” topic that I haven’t built anything for a couple months now.
Simple advice for increasingly complex times. I agree with every aspect of your article “The Perfect Time to Start Never Comes” and am going to try some of these tips.
I’m a big fan of your site and check it every week…
Of all the points above, I found out that the “Learn to Say No” part is the hardest one. Is there any sort of mindhack to keep me from fiddling with little meaningless tasks so I can get to working on the important things? It’s been a guilty-pleasure thing so far, I know it’s wrong but it’s really a hard thing to stop.
Thank you so much for the refreshing article!
What would it take to motivate you to finish off one almost done project this weekend? How would you feel? Don’t worry about why it’s not finished, let’s just get it done. Today is not the day tostart something; it’s the day to finish something! I’m going to finish my ensuite this weekend, what are you going to do? Tell everyone in the comments then you can celebrate on monday. Let’s make it a Get Something Finished Friday!
D. Clark had a great idea that he turned into a challenge for his readers. It is time well spent when you consider the concept of ‘Your Childhood Dreams Fulfilled’. 6) Genius Types – There is too much wisdom and truth contained in Brian Lee’s post ‘The Perfect Time to Start Never Comes’ for me to summarize it all here. Just trust me – you want to read that post! 7) Jane Chin – I love how this edition of the Link Love series has so many “you-centric” posts, and Jane’s awesome piece called ‘