When you hear “start where you are,” do you get excited or scared? Does it make you feel like a weight has been lifted or placed squarely on your shoulders?
You know yesterday I finally got around to putting a desk together for my middle child. It had been sitting in the house for two weeks. I had delayed because I didn’t want to get into a project I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish. Who wants a half-finished piece of furniture in the house? So I waited. I waited until knew I had the time and the ability to focus on getting it completed and put together correctly. But isn’t that how we treat our business ideas too?
If we can’t commit all of our time and we can’t get it done perfectly, we don’t want to do it. In a world where we work diligently to show everyone we are 100% put together, we don’t want to show the world anything otherwise. You know in my corporate career I would have my suit tailored, the. jewelry, the hair, make-up, shoes; all of it had to be just right. I had to show the world perfection in order to be taken seriously, or so I thought. Many of us think that way. So why would we start a business only to immediately show the world our imperfections?
Starting a business or growing our business, taking the next step in pushing our business forward, that takes time, it’s imperfect, and it shows the world just how imperfect we are. Lots of fears there! But you know what, we can’t approach starting a business like putting together a piece of furniture. There are going to be days we won’t get it right and there will be emails that will go out with a missing word. But people like to see us as human. So mistakes are ok. And we can’t approach our business with an all-or-nothing attitude.
We have to start where we are. We have to start! We have amazing ideas and gifts the world needs us to share. Waiting for the perfect day or the day we are perfect in knowing all things about the business we are in just won’t work. It’s crazy! Because that day will never come. So start where you are. The point is to simply start.
Today’s challenge is for you to start where you are. Forgive yourself right now for not being perfect and for not knowing everything. You are going to wake up each day and start working on a new piece of furniture. Eventually, it’s going to look great! And remember, only you know the imperfections in that piece, while the rest of the world sees a perfectly put-together desk. Don’t be so hard on yourself! Take the leap. Start the journey. Start where you are.