Starting isn't actually how to start changing your life
Most advice about change skips the first step.
“Just start.”
“Take the first step and the rest will follow.”
“Don't think, just do.”
We hear this everywhere, and it makes sense on the surface. Movement feels like progress, and starting something feels like the answer to being stuck. That and “starting” by definition seems like a logical first step for any endeavor.
But the truth is that starting really isn’t the first step.
Most people are actually great at starting.
The thing they’re not great at? Following through.
They’re not great at following through because they don’t start the right things.
The people who actually change aren't the ones who start the most things. They're the ones who paid attention before they started.
The step (before the “first” step)
When someone says they want to get stronger, sleep better, feel less anxious, or move with more ease, my first question is almost never about what new habits or routines someone is planning. It's some version of: what's happening right now?
Where do you feel tight? When does your anxiety surface? In the morning? The afternoon? Before bed? How does your energy fluctuate across the day? When you say you're “tired”, do you mean physically tired, mentally tired, or something else entirely?
These sound like simple questions, but most people actually don't know the answers.
The reason for this is not that people are completely disconnected or unaware, but rather they’re not truly paying attention to what’s going on in their bodies and minds. That’s no fault of theirs, they just haven’t been shown how to pay attention.
If we’re chronically tired, we are well aware that we always feel tired. But do we really know what is making us feel tired all the time? Usually not. Many times it’s even difficult for us to determine just which type of “tired” we are.
We can easily see the symptom, but the cause? Not so much. We perceive that we have a problem, but we can’t really put our finger on just what it is or why it’s there.
Even worse, the longer the problem goes on, the more “normal” it becomes. Eventually we adjust and stop thinking about it as a problem altogether. We develop a new baseline, a worse one.
We may no longer see the problem, but it’s still there. We're just less aware of it.
The wellness industry as a whole loves jumping to solutions. It hands you a program and says start. It promotes a meditation app and says practice. It prints you a workout plan and says commit.
But how do you know that something is the right solution if you don’t fully grasp the problem (or aren’t even aware of it)? You can't change a pattern you haven't noticed.
If you don’t know where you are right now, no map in the world will be able to show you how to get where you want to go.
Why starting fails
Think about the last few times you tried to change something and it didn't stick. It could be a new diet, workout routine, or even just getting up early. What happened?
If you're like most people, one of two things. Either you 1) started strong and faded, or 2) you started, hit a wall, and decided the new thing didn't work for you.
In either case, you probably felt something like: I didn't have enough discipline. I wasn't consistent enough. I should've tried harder.
We could all use more discipline and consistency, but often the real issue is something else. The “solution” didn't match the actual problem.
For example, you may have noticed a few extra pounds on the scale and wanted to lose weight. You immediately decide that a gym membership and regular workout routine is the answer, so you sign that 3-year contract and do your routine three mornings out of the week (five on a good week).
You shaved off a couple of pounds during the first week or two, but after that your progress flatlined. After two months, you find yourself working out maybe once or twice per week until you eventually stop altogether during Month Three.
You may have concluded that you failed because you didn’t work out hard enough or that “it’s just the way my body is.” But what if the real culprit behind your waistline was your diet, and you just never noticed?
As they say: “You can’t outrun a bad diet.”
Maybe all you needed to do was make a few tweaks to the types and quantities of foods you were eating and you would have hit your target weight within six weeks.
Does all of this mean you didn’t give those workouts your all? No. Does it mean that you’re an abject failure? Of course not. All it means is that the solution you chose didn’t match the root problem.
You put in the effort, you just put it in the wrong place.
So, starting wasn't really the issue. Starting without paying attention first was.
What paying attention looks like in the wild
First, let me be clear about what I’m not saying. I'm not saying that you need to journal for three months before you're allowed to make a change, and I'm not saying that you need to figure everything out and create an elaborate 20-point plan before you do anything. Action is vitally important.
What I am saying is that you need to understand where you currently are – through mindful awareness – to be able to identify the right type of action for your circumstances.
Mindful awareness is just another way to say “paying attention”, and it’s much simpler, quicker, and easier than you think. It can and should happen in the middle of your everyday life.
What does this look like in practice though? Notice that your jaw is clenched alligator-tight when you see your overflowing email inbox. Notice that you naturally breathe quickly and shallowly from your chest. Notice that you reach for your phone every time there's a pause in your day.
That's it. That's mindful awareness.
It doesn’t require in-depth analysis or deep planning. Just notice what’s there.
Try it right now: close your eyes and pay attention to your body for 60 seconds.
Is your jaw clenched? Are your shoulders tight? Are your hands balled into fists? Is it hard to sit still for only one minute?
If you did this exercise, I am certain you noticed something going on that you weren’t aware of before you started.
Also: Congratulations! You actually just completed a meditation. If you’ve ever thought that you were the type of person who “just can’t meditate,” turns out you were wrong!
What changes when you’re mindfully aware
Two things happen when you spend even just a couple of weeks being mindfully aware before trying to change anything.
The first is that you get accurate information about what's actually going on. You stop guessing and start to see the patterns you actually have, which are often different from the ones you assumed. The post-lunch crash turns out to be a hydration issue rather than a sleep issue. The anxiety turns out to be specific to one part of your day rather than a general state of being. Those stress headaches turn out to be the result of shoulders that are tight 24/7.
The more information you can gather, the easier it is for you to narrow down where the problem lies.
The second thing that happens is that the noticing itself starts to create changes.When you notice your shoulders are up, they come down. When you notice you've been holding your breath, you start breathing again. When you notice you're saying yes solely out of obligation, you pause before the next yes.
This almost seems like magic. Habits are a powerful thing. Most of what we do is done on autopilot, but the autopilot switches off once we’re paying attention.
The starting that works
The starting that works is strategic. But before you can begin to form a strategy, you need to know the current situation. You can only know the current situation by observation.
When you become more deliberate in the process of changing your habits or fixing specific problems, you’ll notice that you get better results and have greater confidence in the new things you are trying. As a result, you’ll be more likely to stick with them.
This is where lasting change takes root. Most of what we call “lack of discipline” is really a mismatch between the solution and the actual issue. When you pay attention first, the intervention fits. And when the intervention fits, you don't feel like you’re wasting your time. You’re less likely to become discouraged, because the thing you're doing is actually addressing the thing that was bothering you.
Work smarter, not harder.
How to start paying attention
We’ve talked about the power of paying attention, but how can we start doing it more?
I’ve got two quick and easy exercises you can work into your daily life (even the crazy-busy days) – one focused on what’s happening inside your body, the other on what’s happening around you.
The first is the mini body scan exercise we tried out earlier: Close your eyes and focus on your body for 60 seconds.
Try scanning your body from head-to-toe, working downward gradually – see where you carry tension. Don’t try to fix anything, just observe. Do this at least twice a day.
Also note when you’re doing these scans. Is there a difference in how your body feels in the morning vs. the afternoon? Before a big meeting vs. after intense exercise?
The second exercise is a form of meditation called “open awareness”: Get comfortable and simply notice what’s happening around you.
What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell? Do you feel any warming or cooling sensations? The warmth of the sun or a slight breeze?
Like the body scan, just observe. Your only goal is to notice, not change. Do this one for 3-5 minutes at least twice a day.
For either or both of these exercises, make the commitment small enough that you'll actually do them. Is one minute all you can spare? Do one minute. Just be sure to do it every day.
When you’ve got the habit down, try to make each session a little bit longer (e.g. go from one minute to three minutes) or add one more session into your schedule.
Ultimately,we’re trying to pay more attention, more often!
If you do these exercises consistently, I guarantee you’ll discover things you either never noticed or never really thought about. Eventually, you’ll start making new discoveries outside of these mindfulness sessions. You’ll start to notice patterns – causes and effects. You’ll start to notice how certain foods or social interactions affect you.
You’ll start to see where the real root problems are.
This is the first piece in a series on mindfulness as the foundation for lasting change. Over the coming weeks, we'll explore where our focus should be, how to find the language for what we're feeling, and what becomes possible once we see things more clearly. If this resonated, the next pieces will too.
