My wife has been on a kick lately where the last person out of the shower is supposed to wipe down the walls, the glass door, and all the chrome. She even bought a special towel to use while doing it.

The idea is to prevent that soap scum or mineral deposits or whatever it is that eventually sticks to everything and makes it look crappy. Good intentions, but it’s kind of a pain to do.

While she was away for a few days I thought, “Oh good, she’s not here so I don’t have to do it.”

But then I thought, ah, it will probably show up on the glass, so I’d better wipe that down at least.

Once i finished with the glass, I thought “Hmmm, maybe I should wipe down the chrome” since that would be easy to do too. And once I did that I figured I might as well do that whole wall.

And then, of course, having gone that far I figured I might as well finish the job. So I ended up wiping down everything anyway.

Why am I sharing this story? Because it shows the importance of getting started.

In softball, there are a lot of things we don’t always feel like doing. Whether it’s practicing certain pitching drills by yourself, hitting off the tee, throwing plyos against a wall, going to the weight room, running a set of sprints, etc., it can be easy to blow those things off. Just like I thought with wiping down the shower walls, who’s going to know if I skip a few days?

The answer is, you will know. It will show up in your lack of progress. And the longer you delay doing something that will be beneficial even if it’s unpleasant or just something you don’t feel like doing, the easier it gets to skip it for another day.

But if you can convince yourself to just get started, or that you’re just going to do a little bit of what you’re supposed to do, there’s a great chance you will end up completing the entire workout.

So if you’re supposed to hit 100 balls off the tee, don’t say it’s time to go hit 100 balls. Make a deal with yourself and say you’re going to hit 10 or 15 and call it day.

Once you’re hit those 10 or 15, you’ll probably think at this point I might as well go for 25, because that feels like a better ending number – 1/4 of the workout. And when you’ve hit 25, you may figure as long as you’re already set up with a bat in your hand you might as well make it 50. And so on until you’ve reached 100.

That’s why just getting started is so important. It’s been said the hardest exercise in a workout program is opening the front door.

Once you’ve taken that step, the rest seems manageable.

If you’re a pitcher and you’ve been assigned to do 50 reps of a wall drill every day to get the feel of your arm path, don’t focus on the 50. Focus on doing the first 10.

Make a deal with yourself that once you’ve done those 10 you can stop and no one will be the wiser. What you’ll probably find is that you start thinking, “I’m already up and it’s not that hard so I might as well just do them all.”

If you’re supposed to go out and run sprints so you can get faster, do the first few to start. You’ll probably find it actually feels good to push yourself (dopamine rush and all) so you’ll want to finish the rest.

Humans are funny that way. Once we start a task we tend to want to complete it.

That’s not just opinion. It’s science.

The Zeigarnik Effect was discovered in 1927. and it basically states that an unfinished task creates a tension that needs to be resolved. When you don’t complete the task, it creates an open loop that preys on your memory, demanding to be finished so you can get relief.

So once you’ve started doing something that has a goal, your brain and body really want to move it to the “completed” section so you can move on. It’s a kind of compulsion.

You may feel a little guilty if you didn’t start at all, but that guiltt is more easily tamped down. But if you did start it, your brain is going to have a strong desire to close that loop, and depending on your personal makeup it may not be able to settle itself until you get that closure.

(For a humorus look at the closure compulsion, check out this clip from The Big Bang Theory.)

So the next time you have work to do and don’t feel like doing it, don’t think about how hard it’s going to be to complete the entire assignment. Instead, make a deal with yourself that you’re just going to do a little of it and let nature take its course.

Before you know it, you’ll find you’re well on your way to doing the entire assign,,,