I spent years trying to get side hustle ideas off the ground. Years where I waited to feel ready. Years of missed opportunities and the chance to learn. In 2017 I was introduced to a nutrition programme with a business opportunity. I lost 23kgs and did nothing with the business apart from plan and think. In 2019 I launched an Etsy store. This went a bit better, the pandemic helped boost sales, then it went into a long, slow decline. I kept meaning to put the time and effort in, but I felt I had to learn new skills and spent my time focused on trying, and failing, to do that.

it’s not about waiting to feel ready.

It wasn’t motivation. It wasn’t even laziness. It was too much, all at once. The opportunities pushed me outside what I knew, what I was comfortable with and, while I love learning, I didn’t really know what I needed to learn or the best way to do it. So, I did nothing.

I was waiting to feel ready, but I never paid attention to what ‘ready’ meant or what it would take to get there. I had vague ideas of what the business could be, but no plan to get me there from where I was.

In fact, I wasn’t waiting to feel ready. I was stuck trying to work out the first step. I needed a step-by-step plan, but it all felt too much. So, I was overwhelmed and trying to tell myself I just wasn’t trying hard enough.

what I know now.

Identity was a large part of what was going on, to change a behaviour and get it to stick, we need to change our identity. It worked for running, it’s working for coaching, but I never paid attention to it with my earlier business opportunities. That said, I did spend a lot of time reminding myself I wasn’t a salesperson, I wasn’t good at sales, I couldn’t do sales. I also told myself I couldn’t learn more advanced SEO and digital marketing because I couldn’t do the basics. I’d built an identity around what I couldn’t do rather than what I could.

make it small.

Identity was a big factor, but it wasn’t stopping me take the first step. I wasn’t doing that because I’d made it too big. I’d also kept it vague and undefined. Setting myself up to fail so I could prove myself right.

Building new habits, or creating behaviour change, building something from the ground up, it all needs a series of tiny steps done repeatedly. James Clear says a step should take less than two minutes, BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits method says 30 seconds. The point isn’t really the time; these numbers are used to make clear that tiny is smaller than you think. Consider a task you want to do, can you talk yourself out of it? If you can, it’s too big. Make it smaller.

small in practice.

Now I understand the concept of small, or tiny. I am able to move forwards. I’m currently rewriting my business plan after my rebrand and it’s a daunting task. Up until now I’ve avoided it because I felt I had enough information in my head. I didn’t. But that’s what I was telling myself. My first task was to research and list the section headings. That took three sittings at my computer, short bursts of research where I found a few lists and selected the one that felt right. Then I chose a template. Then I needed to understand what each section needed. My template took me 3 days to build. All I had was section titles and an idea of the type of content to be written for each.

It didn’t take me 3 days of solid work to build. It took me 3 days of repeated short tasks where I made progress a line at a time. Then, I chose the section that had been playing in my mind the most, this felt the easiest to get down on paper. This took 4 days. Short bursts of thinking, writing, reviewing, considering and rewriting.

build on small.

Small steps get you started. 7 days and I still don’t have anything meaningful in my business plan. That feels like a waste of time, doesn’t it? But consider the two months where I wrote nothing. Now I can see the plan building, I’ve started and I can see evidence that I’ve started. It’s this evidence that builds the habit. Will it take me 7+ days to write every section? Unlikely. But the hard ones will take at least that long, other sections I’ll write in an hour. That’s OK. I don’t need to stay working in small bursts, I just needed to get started.  

I work with people who want to take the first tiny step but aren’t sure what it is. If that’s you, book a call.