Have you ever had an idea for a new project, you’re all excited and then…Poof! You get a passing thought that tells you “it will never be as good as what is out there.” Or maybe you have an idea and you perfect the crap out of it and tell yourself “I’ll launch it if I can just get it right.” Whoa! Hold on there! I’ve been there, too many times to count and honestly what’s behind both of these is plain old, simple fear. In fact, these two thoughts kept me from starting something many, many years ago when the idea for my dream was first planted in my heart. You don’t need to have everything figured out and you don’t need to do everything right out of the gates. Starting small to grow your dream is actually a very smart thing and can propel you even faster than you think.
Look, it doesn’t matter whether you have a new idea for your business, you want to start over, you want to make a career change or you have an idea for a new event, starting small, not having everything completely figured out and quite frankly not super perfect is great. When you start small and start slow you give your dream time to bloom and develop over time into something amazing (although it probably started out amazing to begin with).
I will never forget the first live video I ever did. I was nervous, I dropped my note cards which got out of order, I stuttered when I never stutter…and only one person showed up, my Dad. If I listened to the negative voice inside that said “that was terrible, no one showed because you aren’t interesting, don’t ever do a video again,” well then I wouldn’t be where I am today…doing video all the time. So what if the key to gaining confidence and courage to find our voice and move this amazing idea forward includes giving ourselves permission to stink at video, send the wrong email, have two people at our first event and just starting small? Did you get an A-ha moment yet?
Think of it like this. You want to try gardening and you plant a small flowering plant and you don’t have anything close to a green thumb. Immediately it starts to droop or wilt, you think to yourself, “Oh my gosh, it’s not going to grow. I’m not going to get any flowers. This isn’t going to work out, I stink.” Instead you continue to water it and nurture it, maybe try new plant food and soon enough it starts to grow strong roots. Before long it starts to grow into a large flowering plant with gigantic flowers. If you gave up you would never see the beauty of the blossoms.
So when you start small, it gives you a chance to work out the kinks, learn the things you need to learn and figure things out along the way.
I know how it feels to look at the social media feeds and think to yourself, “I’ll never be that big,” or “I have to do these amazing things, like all the people out there who have been doing this for 15 years.” These amazing people started small too and I’m sure they made blunders along the way but they started small and kept showing up every day, no matter what.
Start somewhere, start small and keep growing, and cultivating, and refining, and feeding your dream all kinds of love and attention that it needs. Here are 3 simple tips to get you rolling…
- Decide what it is that you want to do and commit to it
- Break your idea into small, actionable steps focusing on one thing at a time
- Set milestones to achieve throughout the journey and celebrate the small wins (getting through your first video) and the big wins (having your videos help you to build your following)
And remember, you can do absolutely anything if you believe in your ability to figure things out.
So I want to hear from you in the comments below. What have you done that you thought was absolutely stinky BUT it actually helped you to build momentum because it strengthened your courage muscle?
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