The First Step Isn’t the Problem, the 356,751st One Is
Solving this midway motivation puzzle
New Year’s resolutions take many forms. This year, one of mine was to read through all the works of Shakespeare. I decided to undertake this project after reading War and Peace last year at a pace of one chapter per day. Tolstoy’s epic happens to unfurl over 361 short chapters, so one chapter a day was a reasonable pace.
That said, some days felt more reasonable than others. Any 1400-page novel is going to have some slogs. There were ones that hit particularly hard last March, which is the same way I felt wading through some scenes of Henry VI Part III this February.
These slogs remind me of the trouble with the aphorism that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. This is true, but the first step is seldom the problem. Everyone’s excited at the start of the journey. The question is whether you’re willing to take the 356,751st step, somewhere around mile 178.
The good news, though, is that if you can figure out a smart system, the rewards of all sorts of long term projects are there for the taking — often with little strenuous work on any given day.
The first step in solving this midway motivation puzzle is asking if you actually want to go on the journey. I had read War…
