Got another “magic success system” in my email this morning. One Horse One Man, huh? Sounded like one person trying to do too much. Skeptical? Yeah. But hey, I test-drive stuff so you don’t waste your time. Buckled up and gave it a whirl.
Step One: Pick Your Damn Horse
The guide yelled: “Focus on ONE THING!” Loud and clear. So I scribbled down all my half-baked projects on a napkin:
- Building chicken coops (neighbors complained about the noise last time)
- Starting a sourdough starter (named him Bob, he died after a week)
- Finally launching that podcast idea (recorded two episodes, mic sucked)
- Learning Spanish (“Hola” and “Adios” ain’t cutting it)
Had to admit it was a mess. Stared at the napkin. Tore it up. Grabbed my laptop instead of another napkin. Opened Notes. Just typed: WRITE THE GUIDE ABOUT LOCAL FISHING SPOTS. No chickens. No dead sourdough. No bad Spanish. Just the one fishing thing I’d been meaning to do for months. One “horse”. Felt weird picking just one. Like I was ditching the others. Maybe I was. Fine. Horse = Chosen.
Step Two: Get Your Man On The Horse
Translation: Just do the tiniest slice. Right Now. Not plan, not research, not daydream. Do. Seriously? Okay. My horse was the fishing spot guide. What’s the absolute smallest thing I could physically do? Open a document? Too easy. Type a title? Still barely moving. The method screamed “ACTION!” so I did the dumbest possible thing: Wrote One Single Paragraph. Not even a good one. Just brain-dumped what I knew about the pond behind Miller’s farm. The words were rough. Grammar? Forget it. But the cursor moved. It was on the page. Actually felt kinda ridiculous how small this “win” was. But… I didn’t look up fish species. Didn’t go take photos. Didn’t even spell check. Just wrote one stinkin’ paragraph. Man was kinda sitting sideways on the horse, but hey, he was on it.
Step Three: Go Where The Horse Takes You
This part sounded mystical. Basically meant: Do the next obvious tiny thing. Don’t jump ahead to the scary stuff. My paragraph was about Miller’s pond? Cool. The next obvious thing felt like… writing another paragraph? Nah, too similar. Stared at the doc. Felt like adding a photo would help. But step two said TINY. Getting my camera seemed huge. Scrolled up. My paragraph mentioned bass. Okay. What’s the absolute next micro step? I literally typed: “(insert pic of Largemouth Bass later)”. That was it. One placeholder. It sucked. It wasn’t pretty. It didn’t finish anything. But it told future-me what that spot needed. It was a single small instruction. That’s the “going where the horse takes you.” It just means doing the next minuscule, obvious action on ONLY that one thing. Did it take me to France? No. But it got me maybe a tenth of a step down the path. Didn’t fight it. Just added that crummy placeholder text.
So yeah. Took about 20 minutes total. Feels stupidly simple. Almost too dumb to write about. But here’s the raw deal: Usually, I’d spend those 20 minutes feeling overwhelmed, scrolling feeds, convincing myself it’s too big, maybe researching bass migration patterns instead of writing. This forced me to pick the fight (Step 1), throw one punch (Step 2), and then just see where I land before swinging again (Step 3). Did I write a whole guide? Heck no. But I started it without crying or rage-quitting. That’s progress. Now… do I believe in it long term? Jury’s still out. But it got me moving today without the usual paralysis. That’s worth something.
