The Starting Point

This whole month has been about not waiting.
We’ve delved into Doing It Before You Are Ready, The Real Truth About Waiting, The Waiting List — and now we’re getting to the Starting Point!

By now we’ve learned why doing it before we feel ready is the only way to go. We’ve learned why waiting doesn’t work. We’ve gotten down to the nitty-gritty of putting in writing what we’ve been waiting on and just how long we’ve been waiting (can you say wake-up call?!).

Recognizing the things we’ve been shelving for months, years and decades is an eye-opener. We can’t undo the lost time. We can, however, choose differently for today and going forward. And the great news is this—it’s not as daunting of a task as we may have feared.

Everything needs a starting point. One single step taken on something that has long been on our waiting list. That’s all that is required. It levels down on dreams that feel big.
One single step.
And here’s the deal, that first step taken provides the answer to the next step needed. And so we make our move—and progress is seen, and more importantly, it is felt. Something that might have seemed initially too arduous, too expensive, too impossible, now begins to feel doable.
It comes off the ‘someday’ list and shows up on the ‘this is happening now’ list.

In Keep Going, an inspiring book by Austin Kleon, he tells the story of David Shrigley and drawing. As creators know, coming up with an idea of what to paint, write about, or draw can be what keeps something on a waiting list. Someday we will paint, someday we will write a book, etc—just as soon as we have the time, the money, the approval. David gets things happening by picking 50 things to draw a week in advance.
That’s 50 ways to start. 50 ways to get doing instead of waiting.

The simple thing I’ve learned over the years is just to have a starting point and once you have a starting point the work seems to make itself.
~ David Shrigley

If you’ve already done your Waiting List (and if you didn’t —just click here!) it’s time to get busy.
Select one of the things you’ve been waiting to do and begin listing anything and everything you could do to get started. Write down every idea, the obvious ones, and the off-the-wall ones, that come to mind. It’s interesting how once we start this process we begin seeing so many ways to get started. To do it now instead of waiting. It’s helpful to know that you really can’t go wrong taking action. The power lies in taking action, not so much in the specifics of the action itself—make sense?

It’s essential to do it before we are ready—

It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There’s almost no such thing as ready. There’s only now. And you may as well do it now.
~ Hugh Laurie, English actor, musician, and comedian

It matters that we understand the real truth about waiting—

I’m tired, folks.
I can’t wait anymore.
Because ultimately, I woke up & finally asked WHAT AM I WAITING FOR?
and it was nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, that wasn’t already inside of me.
~ Jen Pastiloff

It’s time to seek the clarity that comes with writing down what we’ve been waiting on (and how long we’ve been waiting)—

Name the things we’ve been waiting on because as you probably can feel in your bones…those things contain magic.
What will it do in our lives if we wake up? 
What magic awaits those of us who decide to stop waiting?

There are a thousand and more ways to start.
We only need to pick one!

Cottage Peonies
12 x 12in oil