“Not me,” I said, a bit disappointed. “I don’t swim. Not a big fan.”
“Well, you’ll have to be if you want to come to my cottage. It’s on an island in the middle of a lake! We all swim around the island every morning. My ten-year-old cousins. My eighty-year-old grandparents. All of us! You don’t have to join, but you’ll be the only person sitting on the dock.”
I signed up for swimming lessons that night.
Suddenly, without thinking whether I could do it or whether I wanted to do it, I just did it.
I just went online with my credit card and signed up for an Adult Learn-to-Swim class offered by the city at a downtown pool. A few weeks later I was nervously stripping down on a lacquered pine bench in a moldy locker room for my first swimming lesson in twenty years. My heart was thumping. My hands were sweating. I felt like putting my clothes back on and leaving. But somehow I walked out into the pool area and learned one of the most valuable things of my life.
What happened?
Within two minutes I realized I fit in. Who was with me? Recent immigrants from landlocked countries, those with more traumatic childhood experiences than mine, and people from families that didn’t have money for swimming lessons when they were kids. I wasn’t the worst swimmer in the group for once. We all sucked! Trust formed quickly. Within an hour I was flutter-kicking in the deep end, wearing a life jacket. Within a couple weeks I was jumping in. A month later I was treading water. And by the end of the classes I was doing the front crawl.
I looked like a drowning deer, but my fear was melting.
How did it happen?
This is the secret. This is the big thing I realized. This is the secret you can apply to get anything done that you don’t want to do. I promise you it will work.
After my first swimming lesson the idea that I might be able to swim crept into my head. I thought I could do this. And the thrill of flutter-kicking in the deep end gave me inspiration to go back next week and see what else I could do. I wanted to swim now. I love moldy locker rooms. Give me the flutter-board. I was desperate to get back!
My “Do Line” changed to a “Do Circle.”
It went from this:
To this:
What’s the difference? Look at the Do Circle. It’s endless. There is no start or finish. It keeps going and going and going. You don’t have to end at Do. Do can be a starting point! Do leads to Can Do!
What happened in the pool? I did it . . . so I believed I could do it . . . so I wanted to do it.
Instead of finishing at Do, I started there. And that made me think I can do. And that made me want to do.
Everything happens backward.
You start doing, and confidence and motivation follow.
I did it. I went to the pool. I got changed. I wore a life jacket. I flutter-kicked.
So I believed I could do it. This was it! I was in the pool. I wasn’t drowning.
So I wanted to do it. I wanted to swim. I wanted to keep going. I’m a swimmer!
—
The Do Circle completely reverses how most of us operate every day.
How do we operate? Like this:
First, I think I can do it. Then I want to do it. Then I do it.
We think we must have the ability to do something, and then the motivation to do it, before we can successfully do it. Otherwise, we’ll fail! The risk of looking stupid sits in front of us and gives us fear. It’s the way I thought about swimming for years.
What’s wrong with that thinking?
Well, it keeps undesirable tasks undesirable by placing our ability to get them done way down the mine tunnel at the end of the rickety railways of self-confidence (Can Do) and inspiration (Want to Do). What happens? Our most desirable tasks are placed way off in the distance with mental barriers dropped in front of them.
Want to write a book? I’ll take a writing course to learn how. Then I’ll find the perfect coffee shop to get inspired. Then I’ll write a masterpiece.
NNNNNNN!
Want to write a book? Write one page. Even if it sucks. The fact you did it will convince you that you can do it. Then you’ll want to do it! Why? Because we love doing things that confirm our belief that we’re able to do them.
Want to start exercising? I’ll save up for a trainer or a gym membership and a set of new shoes. Then I’ll make the perfect playlist and find a gym buddy. Then I’ll become a gym rat.
NNNNNNN!
Want to start exercising? Run out your door. Just run. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing. It doesn’t matter how far you go. You could run for two minutes to the end of your street and back. The fact you did it will convince you that you can do it. Then you’ll want to do it. Then you’ll be a confident and motivated person who buys some running shoes for the next time.
So what big lesson did I learn that day?
I learned it’s not easier said than done.
It’s easier done than said.
4
How does Jerry Seinfeld use this secret to write comedy?
Jerry Seinfeld is one of the most successful comedians in the world. He has Emmys and Golden Globes, and Fortune estimates he earns 32 million dollars a year from Seinfeld syndication rights alone. A successfully touring stand-up comic. A New York Times–bestselling author. He owns almost fifty Porsches. At one point he was the highest-earning celebrity of the year. But in spite of all these accomplishments, Jerry still needs ways to “trick his brain” into getting stuff done.
Just like you and me.
According to an interview Brad Isaac did with LifeHacker, Brad was a little-known stand-up comic touring the New York City comedy scene in the early 1990s when he bumped into Seinfeld backstage at a show. The TV show Seinfeld was new and hadn’t become a massive hit yet, so Jerry was touring clubs throughout the city. After his set, Brad saw Jerry backstage and saw a big opportunity to ask him if he had any advice for younger comics.
Jerry Seinfeld then revealed to him a way he writes comedy to make it his favorite task every day.
“He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day,” Brad says. “He revealed a unique calendar system he uses to pressure himself to write . . . He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red Magic Marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day.”
Guess what that does? Tricks his brain by giving him the incentive to see the longer and longer chain. Who wouldn’t like seeing big red X’s marking accomplishments on the wall? Now all you have to do is keep the streak going!
Does this sound familiar?
Jerry Seinfeld gets his “work” done by doing it first. That creates the confidence of being able to do it. And then the motivation to “grow the chain” and want to do it each day.
5
It’s not easier said than done, it’s easier done than said
6
A 30-second technique to using this secret in your daily life
How can you start by doing in order to get more done?
Here is an anecdote shared by Ramit Sethi, author of the New York Times bestseller I Will Teach You To Be Rich: