This is freeing, exhilarating, magical.

Take advantage of it, my friends.

Of course, we always have the magic of a fresh start available to us — in any day, any hour, any moment. Every morning is a beautiful fresh start! In fact, right this moment, you have the opportunity of a fresh start.

We should take advantage of these opportunities to see the freshness of the moment in front of us.

I recently was talking with my Zen teacher and admitted I hadn’t been studying as much as I’d committed to doing. She advised: “Start at one.” Basically, in basic breath meditation, where you might count your breaths, your mind will get distracted and wander. And then you can simply start at one.

Start at One — this is one of my mantras this year.

Let’s look at how to practice with this during each day, and a couple ways you can take advantage of Starting at One as we look at this beautiful year in front of us.

Practicing a Fresh Start in Each Day

Every morning, you get to ask yourself:

• What would I like to do with this incredible day?
• What would make today incredible for me?
• What am I feeling called to do today? What’s most important?

You can wipe the slate clean of whatever happened the day before (no matter what it was), and just start anew.

And then you get a couple hours into it, and maybe you find yourself off course. You’ve gotten distracted, or caught up in busywork.

Start again.

Take a breath, and imagine this next moment is a blank slate. What is most important right now? What would you like to do with this incredible hour in front of you?

Start again. And find gratitude that you get to start again, over and over.

Practicing with the Blank Slate of the New Year

We’re about a week into the new year, and you might have already started to lose the freshness of this year. But we’re just starting out! We’re at the very beginning, and we can do whatever we like with this year.

What would make this an amazing year for you?

What is possible for you this year?

Who would you like to be?

Take a notebook and pen, and spend 30 minutes thinking about this fresh space, and writing out some notes.

Is this the year you finally write your book, launch something, create something? Grow your business to a new level, launch a new mission, help others in a big way? Tackle something hard and scary and meaningful?

Are there new habits you want to create?

This is your year, to use however you like. What magic can you create?

Putting It Into Action

Once you have an idea of what you’d like to do or create … it’s time to make it actually happen.

Write it down and commit to it. Tell others and promise to report to them weekly. Adjust your plan each week, with the blank slate of the new week. Do a review each month, and get yourself back on track with each fresh month.

One small step at a time, make it happen. One fresh start at a time.

I have two invitations for you:

1. Sea Change Program: My habits program has been redesigned this year to get you good at the fundamentals of creating new habits. We’re starting with the mornings — the Beautiful Mornings Challenge is designed to help you start out a year of growth in the right way. Join Sea Change today to get started!
2. Fearless Training Program: If you’d like to deepen into the uncertainty of your meaningful work, this is the training program for you. You’ll set ambitious goals, commit to them, and work with whatever obstacles get in the way. Join Fearless today.

I promise: if you commit to one of these programs, you’ll create a year of meaningful growth. Pick the one that’s suited for what you want to do with this year, and get the support you need to make it happen.

Think for a moment: what’s the task or project you’ve been avoiding lately?

Some possibilities:

• That report you don’t want to write
• Your book or blog you’ve been meaning to write
• The business you’ve been wanting to create for years
• Your garage you’ve been meaning to declutter
• That email that’s been sitting in your inbox for a month
• Going for a run

So what is it you’ve been avoiding? Identify it now before you move on.

In this article, we’ll look at why you’re avoiding it, and how to actually do the thing.

Why We Avoid the Thing

We often spend our days doing everything but the hard thing we don’t want to do.

We’ll research something to death instead of actually just doing the thing. We’ll talk about it, read about it, buy all the equipment for it, but not actually do the thing. We’ll do our email, messages, small tasks, and check social media or the news — just real quick! — instead of doing the thing.

Why? We’re protecting ourselves from uncertainty. We don’t want to feel like we don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t want to look stupid. We don’t want to feel overwhelmed, we don’t want to feel like we’re not good enough, we don’t want to feel like a failure or disappointment.

We’re protecting ourselves from feeling that. So we do everything else, out of protection.

And of course, it doesn’t work. Avoiding doing the thing actually just makes us feel more overwhelmed, more like a failure or disappointment, more stupid or not good enough.

Avoidance doesn’t actually work.

So how can we stop avoiding, and actually do the thing?

How to Actually Do the Thing

We do the thing by deciding to do the thing. Like, deciding decisively to do it.

We have to pause for a moment and actually consider that we’re avoiding something – which is what I asked you to do at the beginning. Did you do it then? We usually don’t want to face that fact, so it can help to have someone else to talk to about it, to report to, to commit to. Every day, tell someone what hard thing you’re going to do, and by when. Then report to them the next day, right before you tell them what you’re going to do that day.

Decide to do it, and then don’t waver. Don’t let yourself argue about it. When you decide to do it, just commit and do it.

Do it at a certain time: tell your accountability buddy you’re going to do it at 10am, or whatever works best. Set a reminder. Do it when the reminder goes off.

Psyche yourself up, if it helps. Play some pump-up music, get some tea, clear distractions, and then pour yourself into it. Do a countdown: 5-4-3-2-1 and then do it!

Do it with someone else. Meet someone for a focus session on a video call at a certain time, and tell them what you’re going to do for the next hour, while they tell you when they’re going to do. Set a timer, don’t talk, just work. When the timer goes off, report to each other how it went. Repeat daily. Save these focus sessions for the thing you’re avoiding.

Get into the action habit. The habit of recognizing what you’re avoiding, turning towards it (instead of away from it), and then just starting.

Get small victories. Small victories are incredibly powerful. Avoiding doing a big task? Do 5 minutes of it. Do 10 minutes. Eventually, doing an hour of it will be much easier, but do the smallest possible chunk, and get a victory. Celebrate it! Do a dance, acknowledge yourself. Then get another victory.

With practice, the habit of doing the thing you’re avoiding can become so much easier. Use these techniques to get there.

If you’d like to train in doing the hard thing, I highly encourage you to join my Fearless Training Program, where that’s exactly what we do together.