Why Small Starts Beat Big Intentions What I learned about starting over at 72, and why getting good at one thing makes it harder to start the next. Press enter or click to view image in full size Stop trying to write the whole book. Start with one paragraph and let momentum do the rest. / Author created image using AI There’s a pattern I keep noticing in people who are good at things. The senior engineer has been trying to learn to paint for four years. The surgeon with the half-built guitar in the closet. The lawyer whose novel exists as a Pinterest board and a folder of articles about how to write novels. The retired executive who keeps almost-but-not-quite signing up for the pottery class. What links them isn’t laziness. They are, by every external measure, accomplished people who finish what they start. They didn’t get where they are by quitting things. What links them is that the gap between their taste and their skill in the new domain is, to them, intolerable.…