tldr;
I debated publishing this follow-up to Take the First Step because I didn’t want to set a precedent that the Stogie Diary would start including motivational or self-help pieces. But I didn’t feel like I’d said everything I wanted to say. This completes the message.
In Take the First Step, I argued that taking action is simply a matter of taking that first step. Katman pointed out that, on the surface, that sounds easy. Clearly, it isn’t.
He was right. But the difficulty isn’t in the first step itself. Taking the step is actually easy.
The difficulty is in getting ourselves positioned to take that first step. It’s not motivation or giving ourselves permission. It’s about making a shift in how we think.
There’s an old saying: change your mind, change your life. I know that sounds like it came straight out of a self-help book, but it’s useful in this context. The implication is simple. If you want to affect change in your life, you have to change your perspective.
And if you want to know what that perspective really is, listen to the words you use. They’ll tell you.
Words matter.
The words we use reflect what and how we think, and they also shape the way we see things. Change the thinking and the language changes with it. Change the language and the thinking changes with it.
That relationship becomes especially important when we’re trying to take that first step. The same words that reveal how we’re thinking can also reinforce it.
And this is where our words get in the way.
The hell of it is that most of the time, we’re not even aware of the words we use that sabotage our progress because they’re so deeply ingrained in the way we speak. Even worse, they sound harmless. But they wreak havoc on our ability to move forward.
Take words like but and however. Or phrases like I’m thinking about, if only, and it’s not that. We use them all the time, usually without giving them a second thought.
“I want to do it, but…”
“I’m thinking about getting started.”
“If only I had more time.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to…”
On the surface, none of those sounds particularly destructive. Most of them sound perfectly reasonable. Some even sound like we’re moving toward something.
But they all do one thing. They impede our forward progress.
Some, like but and however, negate everything we said before them. Others like if only or it’s not that give us a built-in escape hatch.
For instance, take but. Here’s a great example of how we commonly use it: “I want to do it, but I’m scared.”
Do you see what’s happening there? The first half points toward action. The second half gives us the reason not to take it. What started as “I want to do it” has effectively become “I’m scared, so I may not.”
Now that you understand what the but is doing, there’s a simple fix: change but to and. “I want to do it, and I’m scared.” That one word changes the structure of the thought. The fear is still there, but it no longer overrides the intention. You’re acknowledging the fear instead of using it as a reason not to act. And once you acknowledge it, you can start asking what the fear actually is and what you can do about it.
You may still be scared. That doesn’t mean you stop moving.
To be clear, this isn’t about eliminating but from your vocabulary. That would be ridiculous. Just listen to what comes after it. If it gives you a reason not to act, change the sentence.
Then there are the escape hatches.
These are the words and phrases that sound like we’re making progress, but give us an easy excuse not to proceed. They’re guaranteed failure modes. “I’m thinking about…” is one. “I’ll try” is another. So are “if only” and “it’s not that…” The problem is that every one of them leaves us room to back away.
So what does that look like in practice? We already saw what happened when but became and. The same kind of change works here:
“I’m thinking about…” -> “I’m going to…”
“I’ll try…” -> “I will…”
“If only…” -> “I will find a way…”
“It’s not that…” -> “I understand…”
“I don’t want to…” -> “I get to…”
Try is probably the most egregious of the bunch because it makes failure pre-approved. You haven’t even started yet, and you’ve already given yourself permission not to succeed. In The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda had it right: “Do or do not. There is no try.”
The thing about escape hatches is that they’re a lot more nuanced than but. Most of them don’t sound negative at all. “I’m thinking about…” sounds like we’re considering action. “I’ll try” sounds like we’re committing ourselves to it. Neither one commits us to anything.
That’s what makes them so easy to miss. They make us feel like we’re moving forward without ever requiring us to move.
Escape hatches keep us in the same place mentally. We sound like we’re getting ready to act, but we haven’t actually changed our position. And if our thinking never changes, taking that first step stays just as difficult as it was before.
That brings us back to where we started.
Taking the first step itself is easy. Getting ourselves into position to take it is the hard part. And oftentimes the thing keeping us out of position is hiding in the words we use every day.
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