How You Start New Things Matters… A Lot

It’s an often quoted reassurance script… “It’s not how you start it’s how you finish.”

And in most cases, that’s true. No arguments here.

But I think how we start things, especially new endeavors, matters.

Actually, I think it matters a lot.

For the last few years I’ve spent a lot of time onboarding new team members into various businesses, most recently our national insurance brokerage.

I’ve seen many starts and a lot less finishes.

While there is a case to be made for the type of industries I work in have naturally high turn over and churn (a lot of people just aren’t cut out for sales) what I’ve found hangs people up is actually applicable to any new thing you’re working on. Be it a new job, business, startup, course, hobby…

In my estimation these two things have hung up more starts resulting in no finishes for more folks than just about any other reasons. Guard against these and your starts will be better and so will your finishes.

Starting Error #1 — Starting Slow

Almost every new endeavor has a process to get started. Be in onboarding for a new gig, paperwork for a new job, there are steps that have to be taken to get moving.

The slower one moves through those initial getting started steps, the worse things get.

I’m not suggesting you recklessly jump into things without a single thought or moment of preparation, but understand the longer you take to get moving the worse it will generally be for you. You will get bogged down. Too much space in the process allows room for other things to distract, procrastination, and probably the worst thing self-doubt to creep in.

Starting Error #2 — Getting Bogged Down In The Details

In our insurance agency, there are a lot of details when a new agent is getting started. Lots of paperwork and steps. It’s largely unavoidable due to state licensing rules and regulations. The folks that get bogged down in this process get trapped because they are trying to understand every single detail when in fact they don’t have to understand it all right away they simply need to move through the tasks.

Many will say they want to know the details so that they know they are doing it right. The truth is, the diving into details is often nothing more than an avoidance tactic. They don’t want to get to the actual hard work stuff so instead, they will keep throwing themselves into the detail rabbit holes feigning that they are “working” but really they are just stalling.

You don’t have to understand everything, just work through it. Understanding will come for many things with repetition and time which will help you see the bigger picture. For now, you just don’t need to waste time on a lot of understanding, get busy doing.

Wishing you many better starts!