You have a brilliant idea for a project.

Youve talked about it, planned it to death, analyzed your optionsyet nothing has come of it.

Its time to stop talking about that project and actually do it.

Were assuming you know how tofind time in your schedule, but youre still stuck.

Maybe youve got analysis paralysis.

Maybe youre great at doing stuff for other people, but terrible about starting your own projects.

Here are some steps you might take to stop planning that project and finally get it going.

Weve talked about thefour types of motivation personalities.

To recap:

Questioners: They must completely understand expectations to follow them.

Obligers: Theyre great at meeting other peoples expectations, but bad at meeting their own.

Rebels: They resist all expectations.

Upholders: Theyre great at keeping any and all expectations.

For example, if youre aquestioner, then maybe analysisis very important to you.

If youre anobliger, you might need to involve other people with your project.

Knowing your motivation key in gives you an idea of which of these methods will work best.

Get Some External Deadlines

Deadlines put your project in motion.

But if youre not great at following your own deadlines, use someone elses.

Sign up for an event, workshop, or class that forces you to have something prepared.

It might be a writing group; it might be a startup bootcamp.

If your project requires you to travel, book your plane ticket.

For example, I wanted to start a writing a story Ive had in my head for a while.

So I joined a writing group that required me to turn something in every now and then.

If I didnt, we didnt have a group.

This sense of obligation forced me to find time to get my project done by the groups deadline.

The idea here is to force a time frame on yourself based on an external obligation.

An internal deadline you give yourself can always be pushed.

Grab a Partner

Theres a reasonNanoWriMohas gotten so popular.

It does a great job of using the power of accountability.

With a big group of writers, you work toward the goal of writing a novel in a month.

Ive taken this advice and have an accountability group with two friends.

Heres how we do it:

Meet and discuss what we want to accomplish and whats holding us back.

Draft 3-5 reasonableSMART goalsto accomplish in the next 30 days.

Check in with each other periodically throughout the month.

Meet a month later and follow up on those goals.

Of course, it’s possible for you to tweak this according to your own schedule and preferences.

Embrace Failure

A big part of not getting started is being terrified of failure.

If that fear is holding you back, keep these points in mind:

You learn by finishing things.

If you dont get started, you cant finish.

Failure is a possibility.

But you learn something valuable with each failure.

When you dont do anything at all, youre not learning anything.

Failure ishow you get better.

You learn by finishing things, and you learn stuff along the way, too.

Weve alsorounded up a few questionsthat can help you understand and kick your failure fear.

For example:

What if I failhow will I recover?

What if I do nothing?

Whats truly worth doing, whether you fail or succeed?

Learn to embrace failure.

Use Rewards Strategically

Rewards can be a powerful motivator for getting started.

you’re able to come up with a few small indulgences for hitting certain milestones in your project.

But rewards can backfire, too.

Sometimes, rewards can make your fun project feel like a chore that you need a break from.

To combat this, come up with areward thats relevantto your overall goal.

If youre starting a business, this might be a new book on the topic.

If youre launching a career as an artist, maybe its buying yourself some fancy art tools.

you could come up with your own reward.

The point is, keep it complementary to your goal, not contradictory.

And finishing a task can be its own reward, too.

Make a project to-do list, thensort items by how emotionally rewarding they are.

Which tasks will make you feelmildly satisfied?Relieved?Triumphant?

Sorting your list this way can help remind you how rewarding it feels to finish certain tasks.

Getting started is often the hardest part of a passion project.

Once you find your groove, its a lot easier to keep going, feeding off the momentum.

Images by Tina Mailhot-Roberge,Klearchos Kapoutsis,Joe Lanman,Vladimer Shioshvili,Tomasz Stasiuk, andLamantin.