I don’t know who needs to read this, but hey JUST START! I’m not quite sure when or where I first heard the famous saying “Start where you are with what you have,” but somewhere along my life’s journey, this has become one of my reminders to myself whenever I wanted to achieve something. Actually, I’ve made reference to this saying twice in this last week.
The first time was actually when I started to write this blog. Let me just tell you right now, I am no writer and when I re-read the first blog, I cringed so much at my lack of semantic skills LOL but as I grow as a writer which I’m certain that I would, I shall look back at these and laugh. I suppose I’d ask myself “Whoooo did you even think you were, back then?” but I digress. LOL!
In this moment right now though, call me Seth Godin! If you do not know of the great Mr. Purple Cow Doctor Linchpin Marketing Guru, I suggest a google search. You won’t regret it.
Anyway back to the topic at hand: Just start! If you have set some goal for yourself that gives you anxiety every single time you think about it, listen, just start right now with exactly what you have. That stupid voice that is speaking fear into your plans right now is like I said S-T-U-P-I-D. At the end of the day, fear is a preoccupation with something that has not yet even happened so practically it exists in the imaginary world very much like the Boogie Man. So really... look at yourself right now, are you scared of the Boogie Man? So how dare you give so much power to your imaginary fears?
The imaginary fears that I had before I decided to write the blog stemmed from questions like the following: “What are you even going to write about?, You’re not rich as yet so don’t you dare speak on anything about making money. You have not led or built a successful business as yet so don’t even try there. You are going to put all this work out there for actual writers to see? Really? You’re going to make a fool of yourself. People are going to say who do you think you are? Girllll just stop.. You’re reaching now”…. And the list goes on and on. But here’s the thing I told myself all this and I, Teenisha, in that moment, was a critic with no credentials. And what do we tell critics with no credentials? _________ off! So I told myself to _________ off! (You fill in the blanks with whatever you tell your haters, I’m spicy so LOL)
The truth is, I created The Tree on T. Garcia Education for this purpose. It was supposed to be a place where people can share educational, uplifting content. It was not designed for experts. It was designed for ordinary people who felt that they had something valuable to share no matter how small. In reality, every expert once began as a novice. So here I am making my small contribution which some of you appreciate but which is also very therapeutic for me.
Like I mentioned, I used the “start where you are” saying twice this week. The second time was on Monday when I decided to try to resolve the issues on the T. Garcia Education website. With the help and guidance of my best friend Danelle, who is currently leading the technical support team, I decided to just try. And Lo I did a pretty decent job and now I have acquired very necessary skills in today’s tech world. Yes it took me about 18 hours cumulatively but now I can do simple upgrades to a website! Thank you to my wonderful friend who is always there to help me. I wish everyone had a Danelle :)
I have spent my entire life beating myself up for not achieving unattainable perfection. Had I taken half that energy that I used beating up myself and put it into actually just trying, I would’ve saved myself so much tears and “life-threatening” migraines lol. I also spent a lot of time thinking about what people would think. I was afraid that people would think that I’m too ahead of myself and all that nonsense until I finally realised that people whose opinions truly matter never come with negative energy. So just like I told myself to __________ off. That’s exactly what I tell the critics with no credentials. Again, you fill in the blanks lol.