How you do anything is how you do everything.
Imagine a hot day at the beach. You're sitting in the sun, getting hotter, and you know you have to get in the water. You get there. And then what?You dip your toes, you enter until the knees, you squirm and take your time. Eventually you enter. Or you just throw some water on you and go back to your chair.
I recently started a new routine. Every morning, 7AM, I sit in the sun for 30 minutes with an audiobook, and then I swim. I add one more lap each day. I don't dip my toes in. I don't talk myself into it. I walk to the edge and I go.
But it wasn't always like this. For years I was the opposite of what I am now. A hyper-achiever. A perfectionist. A planner of every detail. I would not go for what I wanted because the conditions weren't perfect. Because I wasn't perfect. That kept me stuck longer than I'll admit.
To become disciplined I did not have a great breakthrough. I just leveraged who I already am. I am a creature of routine. I eat the same breakfast every day for years. Same 10-minute mindfulness practice before I start my work. Gym three times a week. None of it is glamorous. You might even say I am boring.
But you know that saying how you do anything is how you do everything? There's no separate version of you that becomes disciplined and intentional only when the stakes are high. The way you show up at 6am is the way you show up everywhere.
So when I sit down to talk to a potential client now, I don't overthink it. The water is cold. I get in. It’s never a pitch. It’s just a conversation. They never ask for my certifications, background, years of experience. Even though I invested a lot of time, effort and money in that. Me listening for who they are, where they're stuck, what they actually need. And we take it from there…
That ease didn't come from a script. I don’t practice what I am going to say. It came from small routines. From cold water at 7am, and a thousand small reps before that.
The big moments don't make you. They introduce you to whoever you've been practicing to be. So practice. Even when it's small. Especially when it's small!
