Confession time. I’ve missed some of my daily walks lately. I could tell you it’s been hot or I’ve been busy but the reasons don’t matter. I need to get back on the consistency train.

How about you? Is there something you’ve stopped doing, or something you haven’t started you know you should?

A project, a person you need to call, a decision you need to make?

We all have these. The question is, what do we do about them?

The first step is to identify the problem. Sometimes that’s hard to do but you can’t fix a problem you don’t know (or won’t admit) you have.

Identify what you’re not doing and write it down in a place where you’ll see it. If you need a little more, talk to someone who will hold you accountable and confess your sins.

The good news is that this one step–being honest with yourself (and others) about a problem is often all you need to fix it. All that was needed was to remove it from the recesses of your consciousness and bring it front and center.

There will be other things we resist starting (or re-starting). As coach Don Shula once said, “It’s the start that stops most people.”

More good news: starting is easy.

The other day I was supposed to start a project that involved some research and writing. It’s not difficult, it won’t take more than an hour or two to do everything, but I still found myself procrastinating.

I opened a new tab in my browser, entered a a keyword phrase, and came up with 7 or 8 sites that had the information I needed.

I didn’t read everything, I simply saved the urls into a new note.

I’ll have this thing done today or tomorrow.

Baby steps, for the win.

Speaking of steps, I need to go take some right now.