The Start Is a Slog (but the slog isn’t forever) 🏔️

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When you start something new, the effort can feel wildly out of proportion to the thing itself. Most people assume that feeling is a preview of how it’ll feel forever.

Fortunately, it’s not. It’s more like the entry fee.

Here’s how that plays out:

Learning to drive…

Sounds a little odd, but stick with me.

At first, every action demanded full concentration — mirrors, pedals, traffic, staying in your lane. Your brain is running overtime just to keep things on track.

But once you get the hang of it, the brainpower required drops off.

Same task. Way less effort.

Any new habit works like that. The beginning is the most cognitively expensive part. And for a while, it absolutely feels like it’s always going to be this hard… but it doesn’t stay that way.

Familiarity is an energy saver

Once something shifts from new to normal, the energy cost changes.

Things get easier — maybe not easy, but definitely easier.

Repetition frees up bandwidth. You stop negotiating with yourself. There’s less emotional drag, less decision fatigue.

The behaviour hasn’t changed — the price of doing it has.

The trap is assuming today’s effort is the permanent price

This is where a lot of people get thrown off.

They feel the “Day 1” discomfort and assume that’s the forecast for the whole journey. They get overwhelmed and quit.

Creating a new routine of exercising every week is tricky.

Tracking your food and being honest about it isn’t fun.

Saying "no" to others so you can prioritise yourself isn’t a walk in the park either.

But it does get easier if you’re willing to muddle through for now.

Right now feels hard because it’s new.

Later feels different because it’s familiar.

If you can ride out that early resistance curve, you reach the part where the habit becomes easier, smoother, and more automatic.

You don’t have to fall in love with the struggle; just outlast it.

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P.S. If you enjoyed this week's Thursday Three, please share it with a friend.

Thanks,

Jamie