How to Begin When You Don’t Feel Like Beginning

Before we start, you should know that this intro isn’t very dazzling.

I’m not about to weave some grandiose tale that will put you on the edge of your seat. What comes next is actually a bit humdrum, but I hope you indulge me. I hope you’ll put just enough energy into the start, even if it feels like work, because I’m confident it will be worth it. Ready? OK, here we go.

I hate grating cheese.

I know there are worse things in life, but I hate it so. It’s a slow, messy, knuckle-busting experience. I dunno, maybe I’ve just been doing it wrong all my life.

So when my wife and I saw this rotary grater gadget thing at Costco, I knew I had to have it.

We got home from the store, unloaded all the things, and the grater sat in the box on the floor in the corner like a toddler in trouble in an old-schoolhouse classroom.

It wasn’t until days later, when my wife prodded me to use it, that I finally read the directions, did the assembly, and put it to work. And folks, it’s glorious. It does crinkle-cut potatoes, grates cheese, and slices tomatoes. It’s easy to use, easy to clean, and doesn’t take up too much space. Now I can’t wait to run things through it. I want to see everything we can slice and dice. I want to get sausage and slice it just because I can.

But man, getting started felt rough. Even though, obviously, it wasn’t. Still, it felt rough because it was unfamiliar. I had to unpack the box, read directions, clean it before use, dry it all down, assemble the dang thing, figure out which blade did what…the list was endless. Just getting started with it felt like a chore. And yeah, I know it’s not like I had to plow the back nine, start my day in a coal mine, or charge some hill under enemy fire. My life isn’t that hard.

But haven’t you ever had a little thing, a simple task, feel insurmountable? Something with just enough barrier to entry that you put it off? You deferred. You made excuses and stuck to your old ways of doing things.

It’s because new things, getting started, and picking up where you left off all require energy. Specifically, they require activation energy, the effort essential to even begin. It’s the invisible barrier between wanting to do something and actually doing it. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a ten-minute setup or a ten-second decision. Sometimes the thing that stops us isn’t the work itself, it’s the work of getting ready to work.

So this week, let’s talk about activation energy, why starting feels harder than doing, and how to trick your brain into taking that first step.

Why Starting Feels Like Climbing Mount Everest

I’ve touched on this before in If All You Have Is a Hammer, but it’s worth digging deeper. Activation energy is one of those subtle forces that shapes almost everything we do, or more accurately, everything we might not do.

In chemistry, activation energy is the little push needed to start a reaction. Like a spark that lights a fire. Without it, nothing happens. In life, it’s the mental juice it takes to begin a task.

But it’s kinda tricky because our brains are wired to conserve energy, so we instinctively resist anything that looks like effort. The setup portion of a task sends all the wrong signals. It looks like work. It smells like work. So our brains trend toward “nope” before we even start.

But once you actually begin, the task usually isn’t that bad. It might even be enjoyable. But your brain doesn’t care about that in the beginning. It only cares about the cost of starting. Starting isn’t harder than doing. It just feels harder, and that can be enough to stop us in our tracks.

Starting as Its Own Thing

Your brain treats “getting ready to do something” as completely separate from “doing the thing.” Getting ready also feels harder because it’s all cost with no immediate payoff. You’re not grating cheese yet, you’re just reading instructions. You’re not running yet, you’re just changing clothes. You’re not writing yet, you’re just opening a document.

We tend to lump “getting started” and “doing the thing” into one giant blob of work. But they are actually different skills, and your brain treats them differently.

Behavioral psychology calls this the initiation threshold. This is the point at which you switch from “not doing” to “doing.” That’s where activation energy lives, the effort required to cross that invisible line. It’s why you can procrastinate for hours but, once you start, momentum suddenly feels easier.

One way to lower that threshold is through implementation intentions, which is just a fancy term for deciding ahead of time exactly when, where, and how you’ll start. It’s like priming your brain so you don’t have to argue with yourself in the moment.

Crossing that line from “not started” to “in progress” is its own skill. The more you design your environment and plans to make that first step tiny and obvious, the less you’ll need to fight your own brain to get moving.

Make Starting Stupid-Easy

Implementation intentions work because they remove ambiguity. Instead of “I’ll get around to it,” you create a simple formula: When X happens, I will do Y in Z place.

For example:

• Instead of “I’ll work on my draft later,” you say, At 9 a.m., in my kitchen, I’ll open my laptop and write the first paragraph.

• Instead of “I’ll exercise more,” you say, Right after I brush my teeth, I’ll put on my running shoes and go to the mailbox.

That pre-decided trigger removes the “should I do it now or later?” debate. You’ve already made the decision, you’re just showing up for it.

It’s the same approach my wife and I used with our daughter recently. She had been going back and forth on whether to travel to a tournament in Virginia. The decision felt heavy because it meant sorting out costs, travel, and schedules. Each time she thought about it, the mental load of deciding pushed her into delay mode. So we gave her a simple trigger: Tell your team yes or no within 24 hours. That was it. By shrinking the problem to one small, time-bound action, she crossed the initiation threshold without overthinking it.

Here are four simple ways to set an implementation intention:

• Time-based – Pick a specific moment to start.
  At 7:00 p.m., I will call my sister from the living room.

• Event-based – Tie the task to something you already do.
  When I pour my morning coffee, I will read one page of my book.

• Deadline-based – Give yourself a clear cutoff point.
  By Friday at noon, I will send the project proposal.

• Environment-based – Let a location or object be your cue.
  When I sit at my desk, I will open my calendar before checking email.

Pick one small step, give it a clear cue, and make it so obvious your brain can’t miss it.

In Conclusion

Your brain will always try to talk you out of starting something new. Because among its many jobs are conserving energy and avoiding uncertainty. But you can kick it into gear by giving it a deadline or putting a trigger in place, those implementation intentions that turn “I should do this” into “When this happens, I will do that.”

Remember that the people who get things done aren’t running on endless talent or motivation. They’re running on better systems. They’ve figured out how to make starting feel automatic instead of agonizing.

And if you can do that, if you can master the art of lowering your own activation energy, you can tackle just about anything. Whether it’s writing a novel, running a marathon, or finally grating the cheese without bloodying your knuckles.

The secret of getting ahead really is getting started. And hey, if you can get through my dazzling opening paragraph, you can get through anything.

As always, thanks for reading,
— Derek (aka Chief Rabbit)
Oh and have something interesting you think I should write about? You can reply to this email (or any other Chief Rabbit email) to suggest it. 

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