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This is my daughter’s new journal.
She bought it for herself to start in the New Year. I think it’s a lovely reminder as I look out on the cold, rainy winter day… that an amazing future is out there 🙂
She started writing in it just a few days ago… on Januar 1st. I asked her yesterday, how was it going? How was writing in the new journal?
She said… eh, ok. I think I’m going to rip out the first page. I don’t like it.
"Maybe the hardest part of my life is just having the courage to try.”
I love a new journal, don’t you? All those blank pages… all that potential. Just like the New Year, your next chapter. There is beauty in a blank slate. But there is also fear.
Fear in ruining it. The stress of making a mistake. Of it not being what you want. Or anything less than perfect… as it started out to be.
I have the same hesitation. And so… sometimes I just don’t start. Afraid to mess it up. Or I might try, like my daughter, and then want to erase it all and start all over.
But the problem with both of these… is that you don’t actually start. You stay right there, at the starting line. Instead, what I’ve learned though the tough process of innovation…
The Start… is for Starting.
Period. That’s it. Just a start. A perfectly imperfect start.
Because when you start anything, you haven’t practiced it yet. You haven’t learned what works and doesn’t work yet. You are literally… just starting. And that in itself is moving forward.
And as you take that next step. And then the next… that’s when you start to see how this thing you started, can become a real thing. A thing of substance. I thing of strength. A thing of power.
But it never starts off that way. That messy start… needs to be messy. And in all it’s imperfect glory, it’s still part of your story. Own it. Embrace it.
Start with the Start.
“Maybe the hardest part of my life is just having the courage to try.”
– Rachel Hollis
Author Girl, Wash Your Face and Girl, Stop Apologizing
