When I first got the idea to restart the blogging, my first thought was: "No, don't start this Monday, start next Monday." It felt like the safe option: give myself time to scope out other blogging tools, come up with a list of topics,develop a workflow, etc.
And then the second, more challenging voice of The Coach came in: "Why wait? Start tomorrow. Just get started. If you wait till you're ready, you'll never be ready." And I knew that starting before I felt I was ready was the wiser course.
Now, were I starting a military campaign or PR blitz, yes, sure, plan to the nth degree and get your ducks in a row, etc. But for a personal project like this, starting before I was ready meant I had to eschew the perfectionism, set up some quick ground rules to prevent myself from putting up higher and higher barriers (I've now reduced my first draft writing time to 15 minutes to inspire faster writing and shorter drafts), and just dive in.
My banjo teacher, who is also a spiritual teacher, said one time that "The perfection is in the doing." It's so easy for me to forget that, to get hung up on the result or the desired outcome before I've taken a single step.
One of the great teachings of Constructive Living for me was that you cannot control the results, you can only control your behavior. So starting -- and starting imperfectly -- is better than not starting. Starting is in your control. Once I started, I discovered in the doing several little tricks that would not have occurred to me had I relied only on planning. And even if I had planned everything to a faretheewell, I'd have had to adjust my plan based on what I discovered as I was doing. So the better course of action was to fire-ready-aim-fire.
So start the diet today, start exercising today, start writing today. Starting -- and starting again fresh tomorrow -- is always in your control.
