When it comes to creating real change in your life, there is only one action item that is critical. The most brilliant organizational strategies and profound insights into human behavior are 100 percent meaningless without it. If you are not doing this one thing, nothing else matters. I'm not being poetically licentious; I'm telling you the truth. That thing? Start.
Begin. Commence. Initiate. Leap. Whether you want to become a meditator, artist, CEO, friend, athlete, or simply the best you of all time, you just have to take the very first step. What is that step? Write it down. Then do it. Don't worry about the step after that.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Forget about sweeping gestures--they're irrelevant and confusing 95 percent of the time. Instead, make small, graceful, clear gesture after gesture. This is the way.
And also, here is the key piece of advice on starting: you have to do it all over again tomorrow. And the next day. Every day, in fact.
Starting is a sacred act. It requires opening without knowing what is going to happen. This is also known as faith. If you "know" how it's going to go or what is going to result, you're actually somewhere in the middle, not the beginning. So give up all notions. Turn toward this very moment. Open your heart to yourself, your day, your loved ones and your enemies--which simply means not having preconceived notions about any of it--and then start.
Meditation practice is the practice of becoming comfortable with not-knowing.
All you have to do is start. In this case, that means pressing "play."
PRACTICE: A 15-minute guided meditation session from susan piver on Vimeo.
Follow Susan Piver on Twitter: www.twitter.com/spiver
I offer the following in response to your words...
"For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are those: It might have been." J. Whittier
STARTING
Too short is our opportunity,
And too long is our regret,
When we stall our lives because we forget
All it requires is to take that first step.
The voice of frustration
Sounds empty and sad,
As we pine for what we might have had.
All it requires is to take that first step.
Looking back, you understand that
During your journey, what you became
Exceeded the goal, or from whence you came.
All it requires is to take that first step.
A message to others we can send is to
Have no regrets for what you fashion
As you walk the path of you life’s passion;
All it requires is to take that first step.
R. Lawson Meadows
Too many waste too much for too long... then they die… and they are unaware, because they never were really alive. You message is about as important is any message gets, yet is not headed as it should be. Sad.
Lawson Meadows