The Perfect Time to Start
September 10th, 2007If someone was to ask you when is the perfect time to start that new project, new exercise program, new business or any new goal, what would you say? Perhaps you might think the perfect time to start would be when you got a little bit more education, got your diet cleaned up first or just a bit more experience or practice before you went out on your own with that new endeavor. These might seem like reasonable excuses as to why you should delay starting your new goal but they are only excuses.
The perfect time to start is always going to be today since the longer you keep putting off starting any new undertaking, the less likely you will ever start or if you finally do, you might not stick with it. Instead why not jump into the deep end, well within reason, and get started today. When I say today, I mean in the very near future, not in a years time but in less than a week. The reason I say within a week is it is long enough for you to start gathering materials or supplies for a new project, get yourself the appropriate gym attire and check out the gyms in your local area, make the necessary phone calls to set up some appointments or whatever you need to do to start on your new goal.
Often people think that they don’t have enough money to start a new business and that might be the case if you plan on opening a new satellite telecommunications company or open a new truck manufacturing plant but you can start moving towards opening a small business with no money. The key to success is having the courage to simply start. No money can often be a blessing in disguise since it forces you to make decisions and get creative. With plenty of money behind you, sometimes you just don’t have the desired creative drive you need to push yourself in the directions you need to go. A lack of money has been the driving force behind many great success stories.
A man came to me once and asked me if I could do some personal training work for his wife but said she was very unfit and overweight. I said no problem and we arranged a time for her to come into the gym and meet me. He said his wife was desperate to lose weight since her doctor told her she was a prime candidate for a heart attack or diabetes unless she started to lose weight immediately. He said she was 36 years old but she looked a lot older because she was so overweight. He asked me if I wanted to talk to her before we scheduled the first training session in the gym but I said there is no need for that, I will access her as we work through our first one hour training session. I asked him how he heard about me and he said his wife was a friend of another lady I helped to lose a significant amount of weight and if I could do the same for his wife both he and his wife would be so happy.
The lady friend I had helped to lose weight was a nightmare to train in the beginning, crying all the time like a school girl, lazy and half the time she never even turned up for our scheduled training session so I told this man I will need him to pay for 10 personal training sessions in advance and unless his wife calls me the day before each scheduled session to cancel if she cannot make it, she will forfeit the session. He gave me a big smile, shook my hand and paid for 20 sessions in advance and told me she will not miss any sessions he promises. I laughed to myself and thought, yeah I have heard that before. We scheduled the first session for the next day.
When Lucy (not her real name) arrived about 20 minutes early I was quietly impressed although I was still training another lady at the time. Lucy patiently waited till I finished training and then we met. The first thing she said was that her husband had come to see me the day before without telling her about any of his personal training plans for her and that she was not ready to begin yet but would do a session today since her husband had planned it. She said she wanted to get her diet cleaned up before she started to exercise. I could see by Lucy’s extreme obesity and the fact she looked more like a women in her 50’s than her real age of 36 that if she didn’t get started today she probably would not make her 37th birthday. I politely told her I think we should do 2 sessions per week for the next 10 weeks and I will give her a new diet to follow next time I see her. She reluctantly agreed to this.
I bluntly told Lucy the perfect time to start is right now and that is exactly what we did. I took Lucy into a quiet corner of the gym and asked her to do one push up. She laid flat on the floor and her belly was so fat that even with her arms fully extended her belly would not allow her to go up and down at all. Lucy was without doubt the fattest person I had ever trained and I knew both Lucy and I had quite a challenge in front of us. After a few tears and an untold number of complaints from Lucy, we finally got through a one hour training session and I could see she was so exhausted she was about to collapse and she did not even lift a single weight, we only did the most basic low intensity floor exercises with long rest breaks in between sets so Lucy could catch her breath.
In my experience as a personal trainer this was one of the greatest success stories and a perfect example of the perfect time to start is right now. Within 6 months Lucy had gone from 132kg to 96kg in bodyweight and although she was still very much overweight, she looked 10 years younger than she did at her heaviest bodyweight. Lucy’s husband and I were so happy for her once she got under 100kg since we all knew that if she could get under 100kg she could surely get the rest of the weight off or at least most of it if she stuck with the program. Her husband told me that during the first few weeks Lucy had begged him to let her stop and start the exercise program in the future since she felt like she was just not ready to be working out yet but her husband insisted the perfect time to start is now. Lucy’s husband also changed his own diet so he would eating the same foods as her, to make it easier for his wife and he lost quite a bit of weight as well without even exercising regularly.
Just over a year ago my mate suggested I start up my own website since I was always reading books on personal development, the subconscious mind and experimenting with new weight training and fitness programs on my own body and with my personal training clients. He said it could be like a mind and body self improvement style website. I liked the idea since I had always been interested in creative writing as well but I shrugged off his suggestion and told him I know very little about computers or the internet and to be honest, other than email or occasionally surfing the net, computers and video games bore me to tears.
Anyway, one thing led to another and I decided to write a list of articles I think I could write about from my current knowledge and came up with a list of 50 headings for articles. Before long I had written about 20 full length articles in my spare time and then I thought up the name Universe of Success, checked online to see that domain name was available and than paid $9 to buy that name. The perfect time to start was right then and there even though I knew nothing about computers or the internet. The truth was I didn’t really even think about it, I just started to write in my spare time and continued to go to work everyday. If you think too much about it you will probably think yourself out of doing it. If you start today and just do it, amazing things start to happen. A year later I have a good size website with almost 200 decent length, in depth articles on a range of topics that interest me and many others. The site also generates a healthy passive income.
It does not matter what your goal is, it can be a tiny goal you want to achieve that no one else will ever know about or it could be a goal to change the world, what ever it is the perfect time to start is today. Even if you devote just 15 minutes a day every day, you will eventually begin to see progress and without a doubt, you will be surprised at how fast you gain momentum towards the realization of that goal or dream. Your goal is right in front of you, all you have to do is step forward and grab it.
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September 10th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
I am inspired by your website and articles. How’s lucy right now? Hope she is very fine and still in the program. Thank for helping us!