Perhaps My Best Advice... An Inch

Are you having trouble taking action? Do you know what you SHOULD do, but just can't get yourself to do it? Here's a little piece of advice that will give you big results.


The best part of the following self improvement advice is that it puts you in the power position. Sometimes people don't do something because it's easy to be overwhelmed. Some people won't do XYZ because it takes too much time. There really are a million and one excuses not to take action, and sometimes there's a good reason. But when it comes right down to it, there's no real good excuse to do nothing. And I will urge you to share (via a comment below or email) if you have a good - or even decent - reason to do nothing. I can't think of one.

Inch by Inch

Inch by inch, anything's a cinch. That's a philosophy I blew off for a large part of my life. I used to say to myself something along the lines of, "I have time to put it off for now. Besides I'll be sure to get it done later in grand fashion... it always gets done." In most cases it did get done. I'm older now though, and I'd like to think I'm a little wiser too. And with that wisdom it becomes too obvious that some things can't be rushed, and then there are other things that are simply better to do inch by inch, row by row, even if you're not even giving maximum effort. Perhaps the best advice I could ever give someone is to just do a little.

For a couple examples of this, consider your health. Even if you don't run a marathon, is it not better if you just walk around the neighborhood? Sure you might barely break a sweat but I guarantee the light walk is better than no walk for your general health. I used to figure if it wasn't my "best" effort then it wasn't worth doing. Too many times that led me down the path of putting it off or gettin' ready for the big show!

Another example relates to procrastination. now before your brain shuts off because you've already read or heard everything about procrastination just read the next sentence intently, think about it for at least ten seconds, then only continue if you think it might help. If you do just two earnest minutes of work on whatever project you're undertaking every day then you have beaten procrastination. how great is that? Now if you only do 2 minutes a day and never get done by your deadlines it will be a problem. But the important aspect here is that your problem was not you delaying endlessly because you failed to start. How much sooner could you get started if you just had to commit to do an inch or 120 seconds?

Jim Rohn Does It...

Jim Rohn is a personal development legend, and one of his stories talks about the apple a day philosophy. He actually has a pretty funny story with people who mix up an apple a day with a Hershey bar a day. I'll be sure to share a video about this in the near future. But save to say right now that the apple a day is one of those super simple fundamentals that lead to radical life change.

When I really thought about the apple a day philosophy it struck me as something a lot more meaningful. And it doesn't just have to do with an apple either. It can be anything so simple that you think it's meaningless. But the key to note here is that thinking something might not be effective at all does not make it so. If you drank one less can of coke today, then 10-15 cans later you'll have saved yourself from probably gaining a pound of fat. Sound incredible? Not really in my opinion. But what would be incredible is if you applied these small changes to your life, and every area of your life that you're trying to improve.

If it's worth doing at all, then it's worth doing badly until you get good at it.

In conclusion, what I want you to get out of reading this is very little. Really. I want you to simply get the fact that doing very little is better than okay. It's a great starting point and it puts you in the power position. try it out for yourself!