One at a Time - II

Almost a year back I wrote a post - One at a Time - a snapshot of the same can be seen above. That was very brief where I was trying to make it poetic. In this post, I would like to revisit some of those items and give an actionable plan to anyone who wants to go down that path!

Want to run a marathon -

Start off with 1 km a day for a week. You just run continuously for 1 km. Before and after the run, walk atleast 1 km to warm up and cool down. After that you can ramp up each week and each month. Starting from 4th week you should be able to run 5 k daily at a comfortable speed. You can then move to variations like running up and down a fly over. Running fast 3 km one day and on another going for slow 6-7 km run.

The whole point is first to get out and keep moving. The main point of this post to stress on the point that to achieve anything, we have to start and keep moving. The start has to be small and mey be slow too but movement is important.

Coding - 

New to coding - it is natural to feel down looking at all the machine learning hype going around. People will say you need to learn Python or R or something similar. Tons of materials available online paid and free. My advice is to pick minimum 2 and max 3 resources and start going through those course. I too was once a begineer and no one skip these baby steps. Atleast for first month, you have to sit through 2-3 hours daily and keep writing as many lines of code as possible. Best is to pick up a task and then go about writing a code for the same. This also involves learning to build logic and break down complex problems in small steps.

My second point, break down any any any task in small steps and even the impossible becomes possible. I did follow this task breakdown in building my first android app and it worked wonders. You just can't go big if you don't understand the fact that - You need to go small and into the details to eventually go Big one day.

Waking up early - 

You might have heard - 

You need to sleep early to wake up early

You need to have a goal which makes you wake up early

You need to plan ahead to make sure you wake up early

the list goes on and I am not denying any of it. I want to add one more (if you haven't heard it before)

Wake up early to make sure you sleep early the same day. If you are used to sleeping late, then it becomes tough to change the sleeping time. What I follow is, no matter at what time I sleep, I'll wake up early. I'll have an extra cup of coffee in the morning to get through the day, but at the end my body gets tired and I am able to sleep early and also wake up erly the next morning.

Writing a book - 

If we breakdown the task then it is like you have to write a paragraph or a page each day and then increase the number of words you write each day. Guess what, there is another way around too. You can start a blog and write a post once a week. You can write short stories on FB and whatsapp story. You can write a paragraph - motivating or clarifying technical issues raised by your friend. Once you get the hang of writing, you can easily transfer that skill in writing a book.

Exercising - 

The last one that I want to cover it up here. If you can wake up early,then getting to exercise won't be tough. My intention in writing this is to highlight the third point - having an accountability partner or a friend. In compnies we have our managers, TL or delivery deadlines to keep us on our toes. We need to have something similar in personal life to be on our toes. Thanks to my building friend who helped me get back to my morning routine. It started in August, we used to go for short walks at around 7:15-7:30. It was like 4-5 days a week. We had our ups and downs. We keep pushing each other to wake up early and then sweat it out hard on court. Now we are able to hit the park much early, cover more distance and also dedicate time for body weight exercises.

Take away - have an accountability partner.

Conclusion -

1. Movement is key, if you don't move or take action - nothing is gonna happen - Sorry for that.

2. It is good to have big aspirations, models and big guys to look upto it, but remeber you have to take small steps while starting out. There is no shortcut. It is journey your idols have gone through and now it time for you to walk that path. Be patient and kep Pushing - One step at a time.

3. Big projects or goals can be achieved  if you are able to break it down into small manageable goals. Just follow the plan and have trust in yourself that eventually the big goal will be achieved.

4. Have an accountability partner.