I’ve never actually read Goethe, but he’s got this lovely quote that you may have seen running around the internet: “Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.”

It’s a great sentiment. And one that I’ve reframed a bit in the title of this blog, because that’s essentially the gist: that thing you want to do? Just fucking start.

With Time, A Hell of a Lot Is Possible

Shortly after I started running, a friend of mine made me a medal hanger with that quote on it. At the time, I thought he was absolutely bonkers for putting so many hooks on the thing. There are like 36 hooks! When I started running, my goal was just to run a 5k. So, the prospect of filling something like 30+ hooks was completely daunting. I thought it was going to end up gathering dust as a perpetual reminder of how I wasn’t doing enough.

But here’s the thing: I started running TEN years ago. And a whole hell of a lot can happen in ten years, even if I never imagined it would.

Think About Possibilities, Not Roadblocks

A lot of us have big ideas for ourselves. Maybe they’re huge – like becoming a best-selling author, or a movie star, or owning a yacht! (None of those are on my list, but you get the idea). And sometimes goals that seem more realistically achievable still feel fucking impossible when you look at them with today’s perspective: buying a house, finding a life partner, getting in shape (whatever that means to you), quitting your job to do something you actually like doing. Or, maybe it’s something like doing a single pull up, or flossing regularly, or consistently getting up at 5:30 or 6:30 in the morning to write or work out or draw or just enjoy the sunrise with a cup of coffee.

Even the smallest goals can seem like pipe dreams before you begin.

We have all these narratives about how hard it will be, how we don’t know how to get there, how impossible it seems. Or, maybe it’s the shitty inner critic telling us that we’re not capable, that we’ll never have enough follow through, that what we want for ourselves only happens for other people but not for us.

But here’s the thing. If you start collecting contrary evidence – even a tiny little bit – you’ll probably surprise yourself. 

So much of life is about our mindset. If you tell yourself you can’t do something, then it’s going to be damn hard to go ahead and do it. If you tell yourself you don’t know how, then you’re probably going to stay stuck in the not knowing, in the not ever starting. 

But if you tell yourself the truth: that you’re going to figure it out, that you’re capable of learning, that even if you don’t know somebody else does and you can ask them, that everyone has to start somewhere… then you’ll at least be setting yourself up to move forward instead of never even trying.

Let Go of the Shitty Stories and Just Start

I’ve been thinking about starting this blog for a while now. I have big ol’ pipe dreams of what it could be (a podcast! A book! An online course for getting unstuck!!). And maybe those things will happen someday. That would be rad. But they sure as shit won’t happen if I don’t just sit down and do a bit of writing each week. 

And it doesn’t fucking matter that I don’t have a logo yet. 

Seriously, that was going to be my impediment to starting. I didn’t have a pretty logo, so I couldn’t possibly post anything online. And I definitely couldn’t post anything to Instagram. And if I don’t post to Instagram, then nobody will read this, and if nobody reads this, then clearly there’s no fucking point and I may as well just not even try…

Sound familiar? Sure does for me. I can’t tell you how many cool ideas I’ve had that never got anywhere because I let something like “needing a logo” get in the way.

I used to tell myself I couldn’t start meditating until I had a meditation cushion. Or, if I couldn’t sit for 10 or 20 minutes a day, then it wasn’t going to be worth it. (Spoiler: ANY minutes of meditation are better than no minutes, and I’ve now been meditating imperfectly for years. But I had to let go of that shitty story, and I still don’t have a cushion). 

I told myself I couldn’t leave my job until I had my next career move figured out. Then, I did it anyway and things have been working out pretty okay.

I told myself I couldn’t start a podcast about baking without a pretty website and a plan for my first season, and I definitely needed a cool logo and intro music first… all of which kept me from getting anywhere on that project, even though I did a bunch of research and bought a domain name and had sooo many awesome ideas about what it could be. 

All of the “I can’t start until” nonsense is just my fear getting in the way. My fear of the unknown, of failure, of the vulnerability involved in trying new things and putting myself out there. My fear of not knowing what I’m doing. But all of those stories are bullshit. All of that fear is bullshit.

There isn’t a map to our future self. We can’t figure out the path without starting down it.

One minute of meditation is better than no minutes.

One squat or push up or sun salutation is better than none.

One page of reading that book you’ve been wanting to finish is better than no pages.

A messy, logo-less, imperfect blog is better than no blog.

I don’t know what will happen with this blog. I don’t know if I’ll keep posting to it, if anyone will read it, if it will “matter” in any substantive way to anyone else. But, really, what matters is how writing it in the first place is helping me grow. Right now, in this moment, writing this blog and posting it anyway is helpful in myriad ways that I won’t be able to recognize until I’m further down the road.

That’s the magic, grace, and power of starting. It proves to ME that I can take action. It gives me the grace to do things imperfectly. It’s powerful in the way it initiates momentum. And the magic is in the unfolding.

Stop Looking at the End Goal and Look at Next Week

Ten years ago, I was about to turn thirty. As an ex-smoker and relatively freshly sober human, I got the idea in my head that a healthy thirty-year-old adult should be able to run a 5k. 

I don’t know where I got this idea. I fucking hated running at the time. I couldn’t run a quarter of a mile without wanting to DIE. But I got this idea, and I’d heard about the couch to 5k program, and I figured if it could work for other people, it could work for me. 

And it did. I ran a whole 5k (without stopping) about a week before my 30th birthday. And I still hated running. But I proved to myself that I could do a hard thing, and it was so incredibly beautiful and gratifying to accomplish that thing that had once felt impossible. 

So then I set my sights on something that truly felt impossible – running a full marathon. And I did that, too. And now I’m trying to run a half marathon in all fifty states because I’m fucking bonkers and kind of obsessive and love shiny objects. I just ran state #24 (Virginia) and had an amazing early 40th birthday trip with a group of dear friends.

Awesome, right? Totally.

And…

Ten years after starting, I’m not even halfway there. I’ve got 26 more states to go (27 if I count DC, which I do). Given that I’ve now covered all the states within driving distance, I can *maybe* manage 3-4 races/states each year. Which means, my friends, that this is going to be a 17-20 year project in the end. What. The. Fuck?

If I choose to look at it like that, it would be really easy to give up. Who the fuck has a twenty year plan?? I know I don’t. I don’t have a ten year plan. I don’t have a five year plan. I can *maybe* look at 2023 and have a sketchy idea of where I want to be next time this year. And that’s why I have to stick to a couple months at most. A couple weeks or a couple days is even better.

Start Small and Just Fucking Start

I’m going to try and write a blog/week for six weeks. Given that I already have pretty solid writing practices and routines, that feels doable. But I had to give myself permission to just fucking start. Fuck a logo. Fuck an intro post explaining what I actually mean by Settling is Bullshit. Fuck having my “About” page written before putting up the first post. Fuck having everything all shiny and pretty before I can press “publish.” All of that will just have to come later.

Learning is inherently messy and imperfect. And I HATE being messy and imperfect in public. But if I don’t get over that, get over myself, and stop giving into my fear of rejection and failure and judgment, then I’m never going to get where I want to go. And I do want to go places. 

Even the Smallest Action Will Get You Somewhere

In a world of instant gratification, it’s really hard to imagine working diligently on something that may never pan out in the way I hope. But here’s the thing that’s getting me going anyway – even if this doesn’t turn into the big, awesome thing I want it to be, it’s getting me somewhere. It’s useful to write all this out and “hear” myself say it and practice being brave enough to put my vulnerability out there. 

Self esteem is built on esteemable actions. And no matter who reads this, even and especially if it’s just my future self, starting is an incredibly esteemable action. And I’m proud of myself for doing it.

So whatever the thing is – getting up early, taking a class, eating more vegetables, doing a pull up! – just take one small action today. Just today. Who knows if you’ll stick with it. That’s not the point. The point is to just fucking start anyway. You’ll probably surprise yourself.