First, you need to decide what step to take.

If you don’t yet have a good idea of the change you want to make, check out the In 5 Years…, What To Change First and How To Change tools.

A few tips in choosing your first step:

• Make it small
  Avoid tasks that take a huge amount of time or effort to do. Your first step should be small and easy so you can overcome inertia and get started. It’s easy to stay moving forward once you create some forward momentum.
• Make it well-defined
  Create a clear idea of what the step is, how you’ll start it and how you’ll know it’s finished. Try to avoid undefined tasks like “research”. Focus on answering one specific question or achieving one small goal—you can always do more later. Get that adrenaline rush of completing a task.
• Make it commit you
  Choose a task which commits you to your change. Announce it to people who will hold you accountable, spend money, hide distractions or create a visible way to track progress—whatever commitment device works for you.
• Include a review
  Set aside time to review how the task went and ask what could be improved for your next task. Decide what your next task will be and schedule it at the end of your current task (if you don’t schedule them all ahead of time).

Use the Decide on Your First Step Worksheet, which you can download below, to plan out your first step.