The other day I was walking and thinking about the fact that I don’t read as many books as I used to. I found myself longing to get lost in a good book like the old days and promised myself that someday I would return to that old, nearly forgotten hobby. But what was I waiting for?
Perhaps some combination of more success in my career, less busyness at home with raising kids, or just the perfect inspiration for where to even begin on my long list of “want to read” books. It’s easy, as I’m sure you know, to want to do so much that you do nothing at all.
Many of us seem to go through our days with large parts of our lives permanently on hold. There are big things we intend to get to someday, but that day never arrives—never even gets closer.
There are many reasons we end up waiting to start our lives. For me, a big one I tell myself is time. However, that’s just an excuse. I once read that President George W. Bush read nearly 100 books a year while being president. Am I really busier than the president? Another reason is complacency. Any good habit in life takes effort to get started, but we live in fear of running out of energy and guard it carefully.
We all have our own unique reasons for delaying the lives we really want to live. Some of us are afraid, some are embarrassed, and many don’t know how to get started. I’m sure your reasons feel as special as mine, but we’re really falling into the same human trap that the vast majority do. The rare ones are those who actually decide to start living. They get tired of all the tomorrow talk and realize they can just do things.
7 Ways to Jump-Start Living Now
I hope my words will inspire you to stop waiting. Perhaps I can be the final push you need to take action. With that hope in mind, let me start you off with a list of things you have my full permission to do starting today:
1. Switch Careers
Is there a different career you’ve always wanted to explore? I find that people stick far too long in jobs that they don’t enjoy—many out of sheer laziness. They dread Mondays, but they don’t want to do the hard work of interviewing and starting over. Reframe it as the adventure your life needs.
2. Read the Book Sitting on Your Shelf
That next book you read might be the one that changes the trajectory of your life, or contains the scene that you will think about for the rest of your days. Why wait when you can enjoy those pleasures for longer?
3. Call the Friend You’ve Lost Touch With
Friendships don’t maintain themselves; in fact, they naturally die a slow death unless they’re fed with new memories and experiences. I’m sure you can think of a million reasons not to make that phone call today, but all it takes to preserve your friendship is one moment of bravery.
4. Begin the Project Now
Starting something new right away really hits home for me. How many awesome project ideas have you dreamed up but never taken action on? Too many to count, no doubt! Dreaming is easy, and it’s even easier to tell yourself, “I’ll get to it as soon as I have time.” But the time comes only when you decide to make it happen.
5. Take a Trip off the Beaten Path
After years of talking about taking an adventurous trip, my wife and the wife of a good friend called my friend and me out, asking whether we were ever going to do it. That was just the nudge we needed to buy tickets and set off on a trip to Spain this summer. Nudge, nudge.
6. Develop Convictions and Live By Them
A common belief is that you’ll have more time to invest in your faith or moral convictions when you’re older. But the reality I see is that older people who never developed the habit rarely pick it up in their later years. If something is important to you, don’t wait for circumstances that may never arrive.
7. Find a Form of Exercise You Enjoy
For a few years after college, I fell out of the exercise habit. I tried and failed at several gym memberships before discovering that I genuinely loved walking and just wanted to do that. I’m able to stick to it and engage consistently because I finally gave myself permission to do what I enjoy.
I once heard someone say that all of life is covered in a film of inertia. I think about that vivid imagery almost every day. It perfectly captures the difficulty we seem to have in breaking out of the ruts we slide into, and actually steering our lives in the direction we want to go. But, as I tell my children, there’s always time for the things you really want to do—you just need to do them. Somehow, everything else will find a way, too.
