The Do Something Principle (With Thanks to a Pommel Horse Champion)

This was a week — let’s call it That Week — when everything I was juggling suddenly became made of knives. Too many high-tension points converging at once. Financial pressure. Personal uncertainty. Some family stuff. The news. My own nervous system.

Nothing catastrophic. Just... too much.

And in the middle of this slow-burning chaos, I was doing what many of us do: scrolling aimlessly in the hope that somewhere, amid the noise, I’d stumble across the thing that would help me feel less paralyzed. I didn’t expect it to come from an Olympic gymnast.

But it did.

Rhys McClenaghan, world champion pommel horse magician (technical title), made a video for his Patreon supporters. And it was in that video — one I nearly didn’t watch because “productivity advice” in high-anxiety mode is often just guilt in a motivational hoodie — that he introduced a ridiculously simple little diagram:

Action → Motivation → Inspiration → Action (and so on, forever).

He calls it the Do Something Principle. It's not original to him — I think Mark Manson might have used it first — but Rhys explained it in his own way, with clarity and heart. No fluff. No hype. Just this:

You don’t wait to be inspired in order to act.
You act, and that action generates a spark.
That spark leads to motivation.
Motivation generates inspiration.
Inspiration gives you the energy to keep going.
And the cycle repeats.

At the time, I was hovering somewhere between “frozen” and “freaking out.” Everything felt like too much, so I was doing nothing — which, of course, was only adding complications. Rhys's little loop made it clear: I didn’t need a grand plan or a burst of motivation. I just needed to start. Pick one small thing. Move. The rest would follow. And, to my genuine surprise, it kind of did.

Now, in case it’s not obvious, I have never touched a pommel horse. I am about as far from a gymnast as a person can reasonably be without violating the laws of physics. But Rhys’s channel drew me in long before this video. It wasn’t the gymnastics (though he’s phenomenal). It was his self-motivation. His ability to set goals, make plans, and work toward them with steady determination.

It made me wonder: have I over-relied what I consider my superpowers - adaptability and patience —are these at the expense of ambition? Of achievement?

Are those mutually exclusive? Or is that just another loop I need to break?

I still don’t have an answer on this. But I do have a screenshot of that diagram within easy reach now. And whenever things feel like too much, I return to it.

 Start with action. 

Any action.

 Even writing this post.

So thank you, Rhys — from this anxious non-gymnast in a faraway corner of the world. You did something. And it helped.