“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Not only is this bad use of the English language, it’s bad advice.

 

Contrast to: “it’s harder to stay on top than it is to get on top”. One definite consistency about our world, is the constant need for adaptation.  Our species went from rocks and fire to mobile phones and social media. We started somewhere and built on the previous generations’ successes and failures to revise our world. 

 

Instead of picking a self-limiting, superficial goal, aim to simply start something instead.  Start small and work on it continuously.  You don’t even need a name for it, just start and keep working. The endless unnoticeable improvements will be meaningless individually, but years from now it will be Edison’s lightbulb, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity or the maple tree in your back yard.

 

When you think you have something, make it better.

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Don’t rush to put a label on it, just keep re-inventing it.

 

Perform a short weight lifting routine of 50 pounds twice each week, raising the weight by 5 pounds each month.  Two years from now, you will be lifting 170 pounds. Compare this manageable strategy to your current “when I feel motivated to go to the gym” protocol.

 

Write 100 words each day, whether they are good or bad.  At two years, you will have 73,000 words (the length of many books). Some of those words will suck, others will not.

 

Each day, shut your phone off for 10 minutes before bed.  Each week, add 1 minute.  One year later, at one screen time-hour pre-bedtime, you have added 215.4 hours, or 9 days back into your life.  What if you tried 2 minutes per week?

 

Something from nothing.  Start something, recording that you did it each day or week on a calendar and watch what evolves.  Then, when others would have stopped because they were successful, re-invent it and witness something you could never have imagined was possible.