This Advice Will Help You to Start Now
It will save you a lot of time.
If I have to make a list of the projects or ideas I have delayed starting, I guess a simple page would not be enough.
When I ask myself why I didn’t start, I’d say 80% of it had to do with one thing. Before I reveal it, we have to go back to my childhood. Start playing the violin 🎻 and take your handkerchiefs 🤧…
No, I’m kidding, don’t take the handkerchiefs 🤡. But keep the violin, just for fun.
An impossible quest.
Ever since I was a child, I have had a taste for perfection.
To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, please find below a non-exhaustive list of things that could irritate me as a kid:
- When I drew on paper, I wanted my lines to be perfect. Also, I didn’t like to see something written with a pencil erased on paper. Paper becomes dirty and wrinkled. That caused me deep dissatisfaction. The fact that my eraser was dirty confused me. So I had to take a brand new sheet of paper and start all over again.
- When I had a book, I did not open it all the way when I had to read it. I did not force pages, and I refused to give it to anyone for fear that they would tear a page or damage it.
- I did not walk on the junction between two tiles.
- Disorder on a desk was not something I could tolerate (Even my app icons on my computer’s Desktop — on Windows — had to be perfectly arranged.).
And the list could go on… To summarize, you have to know that if one of the criteria was not what I expected in a situation, I wanted to stop everything and eventually start again. It blocked me.
Fortunately, I didn’t suffer too much from it. But I do realize that this has fed roots in my life for perfectionism as I was growing up. To the point where if I don’t have ALL the pieces in place to do something, I won’t do it (or I’ll be very resistant to do it and really procrastinate).
Other little story. At school, if a test was too easy, I would look for the little details that could be a trap, and I would usually get an average grade. On the other hand, when a test was very complicated, I aced it!
I had a taste for everything that was challenging and complicated. I was not interested in anything that seemed too simple.
So, in a way, I have gradually closed myself into a cocoon where everything has to be complicated, otherwise something is wrong somewhere. I couldn’t understand people who could do anything without bothering themselves.
Why am I writing about this? You’ll understand right away!
The awareness.
To get started, forget perfectionism. Start now!
— Me, Gabriel (Kainos).
That’s my advice to anyone who has trouble starting something on the pretext that they don’t know x, y, z or because of another excuse. I don’t know your exact situation. Maybe you’ll find yourself in one of the following behaviours:
- “I want to start a YouTube channel, but I don’t know what topic to create.”,
- “I want to read, but I don’t know when and what to read.”,
- “I want to learn to design, but I need a better computer.”,
- “I want to write a story, but I don’t know the niche.”.
Let me tell you something: just start.
You didn’t get me? Let me repeat it out loud:
JUST START!
Forget about perfectionism. Forget all the secondary things that only keep you from starting. When you start, it’s okay to suck at something. It’s okay not to have the right camera. It’s okay not to have good lighting. It’s okay not to have the right microphone. It’s okay not to have a powerful computer…
Whatever your inner thoughts are telling you that it’s not possible for you to start this project, this business, or any other thing: JUST START!
You’ll learn by doing. If you don’t make your first video, you’ll never understand why you need x, y, or z gear. If you don’t make mistakes, you’ll never progress.
Remember all those things that could irritate me earlier in this story? I had to learn how to overcome them as I was growing up. And you know what I did?
- I accepted that it’s normal to damage a sheet of paper when you erase on it. It’s a sheet of paper. That’s the concept of using a pencil and an eraser when we draw. We make mistakes and we fix them. It is simple.
- I accepted that it’s normal for a book not to stay brand new over time. As you use it, as you open it, as you make notes in it, it’s completely normal. That’s the internal principle of using something. By definition, something that is used is no longer new.
- I accepted that when we walk, we must look straight ahead. We don’t walk looking at our feet, otherwise we won’t see if there’s a wall in front of us. Walking on a junction between two tiles will not make me better or perfect. It will cause me to have an accident 🤣.
- I accepted that it’s normal to not to have a perfectly clean desk. Why is that? Because when we work, we need things around us. At some point, we need to take notes on a piece of paper, open a notebook, or use some other productivity tools. It’s okay if my pen isn’t parallel to my laptop. So is my iPhone.
Imagine having to start your life over because you made a mistake? It doesn’t make sense, right? Let’s wrap it up here, otherwise I’ll start a whole other story topic in itself.
Conclusion
I used these examples because they all had the same thing in common: the pursuit of perfection. And that doesn’t help to start something. On the contrary, it delays, it disturbs and discourages.
When I had the idea to start the #KainosChallenge of writing in February 2024, I didn’t think twice: I started. That was the best way to do it!
If you want to start something, forget perfectionism and start now. You’ll learn the details as you go.
What would you like to start? What is stopping you from doing it? Let me know in the comments 💬.
Sincerely yours,
