Note 23: Jump First, Think Later

A short guide to doing the thing you keep pretending to prepare for

You can read every book ever written on swimming technique, from ancient Greek water philosophy to “10 Hacks To Swim Like A Dolphin In 30 Days.” You can watch slow motion videos of Olympic swimmers, learn about breathing cycles, stroke efficiency, buoyancy.

But if you never get in the water, you are still the dry adult who know a lot of wet facts but still can’t swim.

At some point, you have to jump.

People think others will judge their messy beginning, but everyone also started out at the beginning and are now probably too busy wrestling with their own fear.

The jump is uncomfortable. There is no way around that. The water is never exactly the right temperature. The conditions are never perfect. There is always one more thing that would make you “more ready.”

Many of us live in a strange loop. We prepare, study, highlight books, listen to podcasts, make lists, upgrade our lists, and convince ourselves that we are making progress.

I’ll start that business when I finish that book about entrepreneurship.

I’ll call granny once I finish cooking dinner (that excuse of the boiled egg you were preparing 5 weeks ago and still have not called).

I’ll launch that Substack once I have learned proper prompting techniques.

I’ll kiss that girl I have liked since middle school once I grow as mustache as cool as Simon’s.

Hahn don’t wait. Nike said it well, “just do it”.

Jump…

Mustache or no mustache, that girl might reject you, or not, and if she does it’s ok. Someone else will find it funny and accept your proposition.

Remember, preparation is not progress. It is often a very elegant form of avoidance.

So here is a simple experiment.

Think of one thing you have been circling around.

Not the life vision for the next twenty years.

Just one (even if it’s small) thing.

Now ask:

What is the version of “jumping in the water” I can do today?

Do it badly if you must, but do it.

At the end of your life, you will not remember highlighted sections on the swimming books. You will remember how the water felt.