Start Now: Why We Should Start Before We’re Ready

Starting is hard

There’s something magical about a new notebook with its blank pages full of possibility- but there’s something terrifying about it as well. Where to begin? Are we really ready to start writing? What if we mess it up?

When we have a new project to start it can be an exciting time but it can also be overwhelming. We’re too busy, we’re not sure if we’re ready to begin, and now that we’re thinking about it we’re not sure if this was a good idea in the first place. Maybe it’s not completely thought through yet. Suddenly we have a million other things to do.

Our writing sits untouched despite our good intentions.

We Have A Fear of Starting

The resistance we have to moving forward with our writing can often be traced back to fear. We all have things we’re afraid of and avoid. These fears take many forms and can sometimes be pretty deeply rooted in our lives. Acknowledging and identifying our fears is an important step in overcoming and working through them.

Fear of failure

This is one of the most prevalent fears in our culture today. We’re told to succeed, be a boss, hustle, and make ourselves proud. We’re told to be winners.

We’re rarely told that failure is acceptable.

Yet failure is how we learn. Being open to trying new things is how we grow. In order to reach our full potential we need to be willing to take chances.

We need to realize that our identity is not shaken if we fail. We are not less of a person if we make a mistake.

In fact, I’d argue that it takes great strength of character to be willing to try something new. It shows guts to be willing to be bad at something. And this is how we get better at it.

Being willing to fail will help make us better.

 

Having fears in life is normal. It’s a matter of identifying and managing them in healthy ways instead of letting the fear overwhelm us.

 

Other common fears related to our writing can be:

• Fear of our work being hard

• Fear of looking silly

• Fear we aren’t good enough

These fears are real and they can be powerful. Do you recognize some from your life? (I have all of these fears and more depending on the day so you’re definitely not alone!)

These fears don’t need to hold us back in our writing or in our lives. They don’t need to control us. We can surround ourselves with good people and with encouraging truths to reassure us. And we can overcome.

Why We Should Start Writing Now

We just looked at why writing is hard. Starting new things and moving forward is rarely easy. But it is worthwhile for many reasons.

 

If we wait until we’re ready we’ll never get started.

Ever try waiting for the perfect moment to do something? Yeah, those perfect moments don’t usually come along. Or by the time the perfect moment comes, we’re busy with something else. Waiting for everything to be “just so” and for ourselves to feel “ready” is both vague and difficult to achieve. I’m afraid we’ll spend most of our time waiting and not much time actually doing.

 

Sometimes we don’t know what we need to do to until we start.

I’ve heard people say that we will only truly learn things by doing them. While I wouldn’t want to take this approach in some situations (let’s be safe, people!) I think writing can be a good example.

For instance, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted this blog to look like when I started out. How many menus did I need? What were my categories going to be? Did I need themed colors? What did branding even mean? It wasn’t until I actually started putting things on my blog that I began to get an idea of what needed to go where.

Trying to plan everything out before we start can be a tempting idea. It’s nice to know what we’re doing! But often there comes a point when we need to start moving forward despite some lingering uncertainty.

 

The time will pass regardless- wouldn’t we rather be making progress?

Sometimes I get intimidated to start projects because they look long and they look hard. They look like a lot of work and the payoff won’t be for years. A 5 year plan? That’s so far away.

But the thing is, the time will pass. Days become years so quickly. Soon enough we’ll get to that point in the future we were envisioning. Will we have made progress toward our goals? Will we be happy with where we’re at in 5 years?

 

Even slow progress is some progress.

The tortoise from the story the Tortoise and the Hare is my hero. Slow and steady wins the race, my friends! I don’t usually feel like I’m making quick progress. It’s a few minutes of writing at a time, a few pages in a week, a bit here and a bit there.

But it’s still progress.

Which means that so long as I keep moving forward, eventually I’ll get there! I want you to get there too 🙂

 

Even “failure” or unfinished work is learning.

It we are willing to accept and learn from failure instead of being afraid of it, then it can become a powerful opportunity for growth. As Morihei Ueshiba said:

“Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something”

We can always be learning. Life is a constant journey of growing and becoming more of who we want to be. The same is true of our writing. We can learn from our unfinished projects, the rejected manuscripts, and the disastrous attempts. Instead of marks of failure they can be stepping stones to get us where we want to go.

 

We may be more ready than we think!

We might start with shaking knees and a fearful heart but sometimes we do far better than we ever expected. Sometimes we can do more than we thought! And we’ll never know until we try.

 

So here’s to trying new things and being brave. Here’s to having fear but doing it anyway. We are writers who are boldly going forward into new adventures and conquering blank pages. Hear us roar! 🙂

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What about you? Do you find it hard to start new projects? What is your process for moving past fear?