Why it Can Be Good to Start Before You Are Ready

Maybe you have an idea of something you would like to do or create, but you feel you are not quite ready yet.

Maybe you feel like you have to learn a skill, like public speaking before you can run those workshops that you have been dreaming about.

Or maybe you feel like you have to look a certain way before you can be on camera. Or you need to wait until you have more time before you start writing your book, painting your abstract oversized gouache pictures, or start growing your vegetable garden.

Whatever it is you want to create, it’s so easy to put it off, because you might feel like you aren’t ready yet.

The problem is that you might never feel ready, never be skilled enough, confident enough, or have enough time, money, resources to get started.

Diving right in before you’re ready can be so liberating.

So what do you do if you don’t feel skilled enough to get started with something?

Yes, it’s good to learn the basics of something you want to try, like create a website if you want to blog, set up a podcast if you want to talk, etc. But you can usually learn these basic skills with a quick Google search and a few hours of focused work. Everything else you will learn along the way while you are doing the thing.

For example, I started my podcast with a sore throat because I was so scared speaking publicly, but my desire to do it was bigger than my fear, so I kept going.

With every episode that I publish, I figure out something else about having a podcast.

I allow myself to play with music for the background, or for an intro and outro.

I’m trying to find ways to improve the sound quality without having a proper microphone.

Yesterday I listened to my recording and wanted to find out how to get less of the blowing noises while recording. So I googled it and found out how to make a simple pop filter. I’m using that today and hope that the sound quality has improved a bit. If not, I’ll find other ways to tweak and improve it.

I don’t expect myself to be perfect from the get-go.

I even like the idea of having this super professional podcast and online business someday, but people can still go back to my first wonky attempts of recording, writing, making courses.

Do you ever like doing that? Going way back to the first YouTube videos or blog posts of someone you admire?

I like seeing how people evolved over time.

Anyway, I think we live in a great time for self-directed learning. You can just dive into your projects and when you come up to a challenge or problem, ask Google for help or find a mentor that you feel drawn to.

But don’t keep taking courses without taking action because you’ll never feel ready enough to start.

Begin now and get good at it along the way.

I just want to add how I made this podcast episode today, because I think it’s a good example for this.

I just woke up this morning before everyone else woke up and I had an idea of recording this podcast. So I took my notepad and I wrote out all my ideas.

Then I took my phone, I went into the bathroom because I didn’t want to wake anyone up, and I just recorded myself talking into my phone and then I sent the recordings to my email address, put it up and put music behind it and that’s it.

Podcast episode finished. It can be that easy and if you just keep going like this and just create things in a quick and easy way while you’re still inspired you’ll keep getting better at it.

You will.

Here’s a link to this podcast episode.