The Most Common Mistake That People Make When Starting Out
I am sure you have made it too!
This is the single biggest and most common mistake people make when they start something new. It is the reason they are inconsistent in following a new habit. And ultimately, they give up.
That mistake is:
Overloading with too much work in the beginning.
Didn’t get it?
I’ll explain.
Imagine this situation.
Tom decides to improve his vocabulary. In order to so, he decides to do the following:
- Read 30 pages of a book daily.
- Mark out the words he is unfamiliar with.
- Look for their meaning in the dictionary.
- Record the words in a diary.
- Review the diary daily.
Bang on. This seems like a good plan. Tom thinks that he will definitely be able to improve within some days.
But this is what generally happens-
For the first few days, Tom is very enthusiastic. He is able to follow all the steps. He’s on a roll.
But after some days, if you go and ask Tom, “ What progress have you made?”, he’ll say, “Ah! I dropped the idea. It was taking way too much time. I am looking for an alternative way.”
This must have sounded familiar to some of you.
Comment “Yes” if you have made this mistake too.
If you overload with too much work in the beginning, ultimately you are going to get exhausted.
Your brain needs some time to get familiar with the new thing. By overloading, the brain feels burnout. Instead of making the task interesting, you made it boring. It will seem like a gruelling task for you. You’ll eventually give up.
What to do then?
Start slowly. Make progress. Then increase the work a bit. Make progress. Again increase the wok a bit. Keep repeating this.
This is what I would have told Tom to do.
Read one page of a book daily. That book should be interesting to him. The rest of the steps remain the same.
There will be a point when he’ll find this easy. Then he should increase the number of pages to two. He should keep repeating this process.
This is the best way to stay consistent. You’ll not fall behind.
