We are not talking about races and how competitive life is. The title is just fancy way of saying,  that if you really want to see yourself doing/achieving something, you first have to start.

“Well begun is half done”, is something that most of us would have read or heard at some part of our life(if not, this is the moment for you). I read it like “Well, begun is half done”, this makes me realize that we don’t always need the perfect starts. Sometimes all we need is just a little push to get started. More often than not, this push would not come externally. You would need to push yourself.

This is one area where I used to falter always(sometimes I do that today as well), I get caught up with the thought of learning everything I could before starting something. This desire for that perfect start usually ends up being an excuse for not starting. Ok, in some fields it might be required that you build a solid foundation and then start(I wouldn’t advice someone to be a doctor/engineer without a solid foundation), but for everything else you can just get started.

The following lines are from an e-book(one that people give you for free, so that you buy their full course or a paid service). Nonetheless I found these lines really helpful

#1 You don’t have to get it right, you have to get it going. Imperfections can be fixed down the track.

 

#2  a. Start Immediately

       b. Improve it until it’s good .

       c. Finish

       d. Get feedback

I have these lines in my journal and read them almost daily to reinforce this idea.

 

Story: I will start on a good day

I think what I mentioned already in the post should drive the point across, but since I would like to associate every post with a personal story, I would like to tell you about a couple a of instances where I was also stuck at Level – 0 and never even making a start.

One such example would be my blogs. This one and codisfy.com. I had prepared a list of books and courses I would go through before I start with the blogs. I knew why I wanted to have them, but maybe procrastination or fear of not doing it right was stopping me from starting. Although I do not want to do shoddy job at writing, but – How am I going to improve without putting it out there and getting the feedback? This thought pushed me to write and have some sort of consistency.

Another example would be a programming certification(Zend Certification) that I wanted to do, but was pushing it forward, thinking I am not prepared enough, although I have been using the programming language pretty extensively. Now preparation is such a relative thing, I got to realize it through many instances later on as well. You can’t be prepared for 100% of the things, but can be well prepared and this you can sense.
Once I realized this, booked an exam two months away. Started brushing up on the topics in exam syllabus and in less than 3 months had the certification to my name.

So what are you waiting for? Get your running shoes and head out! 🙂

This post is part of Lessons Journal