the smallest steps

Most people who give life advice have something about their personality that is a little daunting. Whenever I read, watch, or listen to someone describe how to get ahead in life, there is always a part of my brain that thinks 'Easy for you to say'. 
  
Let's indulge the shadow for a minute. The content creator you admire has reached a kind of success that you will never achieve. They all have certain advantages that were determined at birth, an intertwining of nature and nurture gave them specific characteristics that you will not be able to exactly replicate. Even if they didn't draw on a resource like inherited wealth, they used creativity to add value. If you took the exact path they did without creativity, you are joining the cycle deep in the diminishing returns phase. 
  
I don't know your life. But I know that if you have an internal monologue, part of it is afraid of success. Success is change, and change is scary. Your mind will serve up one excuse after another as to why change is impossible. 
  
The most powerful excuse your mind has is based on evidence. Change is impossible because you haven't changed yet. 
  
But another part of you wants to start somewhere. 
  
People tend to change for two reasons. They take incremental steps, or they have been backed into a corner, and they need to make big changes fast. 
  
This bit of advice here is for someone who is mostly comfortable, but curious about the smallest incremental steps they can take. 
  
We're not going to start a journal and map out our true purpose today, or anything scary like that. We're reserving that for the 'backed in a corner' advice. 
  
Today, you spent your day doing what you are adapted to do. You are very skilled at the strategies that you use to get through your day, however you do it. That is the first thing you have to grasp. You have a skillset. If your situation changed, you would develop new skills to navigate that new environment. 
  
The second thing to understand is that there are a limited number of hours in a day. You will be asleep for part of them, and sleep is vital. You likely have a job, or school, or something that you have to spend a lot of time and mental energy on. And the time you have left might default to some kind of mindless entertainment, because you don't have the energy or inclination for much else. 
  
You're not going to hear this from many other people, but it's okay to multitask. 
  
The research is pretty clear that the human mind can only focus on one task at a time. If you are studying for a test, you will get better results the more distractions you can shut out. 
  
But the amount of time you can spend on deep work in a day is only a few hours. You can't spend all your waking hours focused on studying. Your job, school, or family might already leave you too mentally exhausted to do much more. If you are already too drained to focus on anything, or you only spend your time on mindless entertainment, multitasking won’t make anything worse. 
  
Let's say that you often spend several hours a day playing video games. I'm right there with you. I love gaming. But if I'm playing a game that isn't driven by narrative, I am shutting off the game music and listening to a video or a podcast. Most recently, I absorbed two four-hour courses on copywriting and technical writing. I wasn't fully focused on them, so my retention isn't going to be great. I can't recite chapter and verse on these videos. But I know more about these subjects than I did. I have a general sense of how to break into these fields, who would be interested in doing them full-time, what kind of money can be made in them, etc. I also know how to proceed with follow-up research, if I want to do a deep dive. 
  
If I am spending a chunk of time commuting or washing dishes, I sometimes throw on a podcast on something I want to know more about. That might be an addition that works for you. 
  
The third kind of multitasking is when you are mostly focused on one activity. You want the task to take up most of your attention, but you are throwing on some background music to stay engaged. Or maybe you grab a snack while still mostly engaged. This is probably fine. Experiment. See what works for you. Try different music genres and lower volume. 
  
If multitasking doesn't appeal, another option is the ten-minute dip. Find ten minutes in your day to take a walk, meditate, or research a subject. As the days go by, you can accumulate a lot of gains from repeatedly doing something for ten minutes. 
  
These suggestions are not meant to be a camel nose in the tent. I'm not trying to realign your entire life so that you spend ten hours a day in the gym and ten hours meditating and ten hours cold calling sales leads. Fuck all that. I am trying to spark your curiosity about what could happen if you make the smallest possible changes. 
  
I mentioned taking a walk before. This is the easiest exercise to fit into any schedule. If you're intimidated by the idea of opening the door to a gym, try taking a walk. Figure out what you need for safety and sun protection, and try it. 
  
Maybe you want to change your diet. When I did this, the first thing I changed was breakfast. It used to be sugary cereals and soda, and now it's black coffee and Greek yogurt. What I figured out is that I don't have the energy to make decisions first thing in the morning, so a long-term habit would stick. If you're trying to change up dinner, you have all day to talk yourself out of eating the healthy option. 
  
I focused on the span of one day in case, like me, you have trouble with anxiety. It's easy to get overwhelmed when you think about the future. But if you focus on how to get through the day, you'll be fine. ​