Find the "First Track" of Your Goals

Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Daily Dot. It is January 6th, 2022, and the idea that I want to share with you today that has been on my mind comes from a question in yesterday's webinar. So as I mentioned yesterday, I hosted a webinar about the productivity flywheel concept that I talked about on the podcast this week. But one of the common challenges or issues that several people brought up when it came to pursuing their goals is the problem of not knowing where to start. And this is really common. It feels like there's so many things that you could be doing. And so what is the thing that you should be doing? And what came to mind for me is a passage from a book that I read last year that I really liked called The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life. And in this book, there's a chapter called The First Track, and it's something that I've used myself whenever I feel a little overwhelmed or whenever I feel like I don't know where to start with something new. There's a passage, and I'll just read to you from the book. This is page 43 in The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life. The American tracker Tom Brown says, the first track is one end of a string. On the other end, a creature is moving. And that's just a little thing. There's a couple other sections that I want to read to you from this book, but you can think of your goal, your destination, your outcome as the creature on the other end of the string, especially if you're not really sure and you don't have enough experience or expertise to understand what the outcome, what the final goal could be. And so it's a little tough to deconstruct, but what isn't as tough to deconstruct is thinking about what is that first track? What is that first small thing that you can do? If you've followed my work for a while, then you know that I'm also a fan of the Tiny Habits method from Stanford researcher and professor BJ Fogg. Another great book that's definitely worth reading, but it's the same kind of idea of we're just going to find that first small thing we can do. We're going to find the first track. There's another section in page 46 of The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life where the author Boyd Varty goes on to say, you have a first track. If you go and get some of what you need, you might get a second first track. So a lot of pursuing goals and habits in the early days when you're not quite sure what it looks like or what it means is just to find that first track and follow it. Follow where it leads you until you get to a second first track. Joseph Campbell, who is a, like, world-famous mythologist, passed away several years ago, but he writes and says, if you can see your whole life's path laid out, then it's not your life's path. Vardy then goes on to add, "In the bush and in life, we don't get trails fully laid out. We get tremendous unknowns, and if we are lucky, first tracks, then the next first track, and the next first track." Vardy goes on to say, "In my own life, I have often struggled with the first track. Full of grand visions and the desire to do something great, I often couldn't find the first small beginning and then the next small beginning." I couldn't dial huge possibilities into small practical actions. I couldn't trust that doing enough of what was needed to be done today would, with time, render a path and an outcome that could be great. I had to learn to be in the process of transformation, not trying to be transformed. You can't skip past creating to the creation. Wow, what a good lesson for all of us today. It is just the nature of our world and our society, especially in the West, especially in the United States, that we want to skip the process of transformation and not being transformed. We want to skip creating to the creation. I know I've felt that so many times in the past year as I'm starting, starting things out and building my business. Like, why isn't it a successful 7-figure business yet? What the heck? I myself have wanted to skip the transformation. And so what I'm trying to do this year, and I encourage you to do, is have this first track mindset. Whenever you are trying to figure out where to start, just look for that first track. You may not even realize how small it could be, but it's something worth doing. It's something worth starting. It's a tiny habit, a tiny step that is worth taking. When you find that first track, you might just find a second track to go along with it. Okay. Thanks so much for listening to this episode. Keep in mind that if you want to be a part of a group that is finding and following our first tracks in 2022, go ahead and check out productivitypowerup.com. You'll be able to join the third cohort that is starting January 10th. That's an onboarding week. And then the first lesson actually starts on January 17th, but registration signups for this cohort will end on Monday, January 10th. And I hope to see you in there. If you have any questions, probably the best thing to do is hit me up on social media @MattRagland on either Twitter or Instagram. You can also email me matt@mattragland.com. Okay. Thanks so much for listening to this daily edition of the Connect the Dots podcast, and I will see you tomorrow. With a new lesson and idea. Thanks. Bye.