The Courage to Start Badly

A friend’s birthday wish on my 30th mentioned an old blog post I wrote 9 years ago. It caught me off guard – in the best way. It brought back a rush of memories from those writing days: late-night drafts on WordPress, that quiet satisfaction after hitting “publish,” and the strange thrill of putting something out into the world.

Then I realized: the last post I actually published was seven years ago.

It’s not that I stopped writing. I didn’t. I wrote maybe five or six drafts over the years, each one with potential. But they never felt ready. I’d open them up, make a few edits, second-guess a line, and then quietly close the tab. Maybe next week, I’d think. Maybe when it’s better.

But “better” never came. And slowly, the writing stopped too.

So here I am, trying to restart. And I figured the best way to begin again is to talk about why beginning is so hard.

We often imagine that starting something – really starting – means having everything in place. A clear plan. A clean runway. The right moment. The right mood. It’s like picturing a bonfire in a movie:
A vast open field.
Neatly chopped wood stacked like a sculpture.
Dry kindling fluffed and waiting.
A crisp night sky overhead.
You strike a match, and whoosh – the whole thing goes up in a glorious blaze.

That’s the fantasy.

In real life? You’re crouched in the damp dark with one trembling match, a few soggy twigs, and wind slapping you in the face. You’re not even sure if the wood will catch. But you light the match anyway. You lean in. You hope.

We tend to imagine "starting" as something ambitious – a new business, a brand, or a total body transformation. Yet some of the most meaningful starts are far less dramatic. They're the small, intentional acts that remove friction from our lives: choosing to sleep an extra hour, restarting a long-abandoned workout routine (me), or cooking a healthy meal instead of ordering takeout. These are the quiet beginnings that matter, the ones that build momentum and gently improve our quality of life. The small starts count too. And no - they don’t have to begin on January 1st with a gym membership and a green smoothie. You can start on a random Tuesday afternoon in September with whatever you’ve got.

And when we think about taking on something bigger – a new project, a new hobby, a public post like this one – that intimidation only grows. It rarely feels powerful. It feels awkward. Reckless. Exposed. It feels like putting out something that barely works, knowing full well that other people might see it, judge it, or worse – ignore it entirely. That feeling? That tightness in your chest, that whisper of who do you think you are? That’s not failure. That’s the toll for doing something new. And everyone pays it.

Over the years, I’ve learned that even the people we now idolize went through the same discomfort – and still do. Jeff Bezos didn’t know how to build Amazon when he started. He just thought people might buy books online. That was enough. The site was clunky. Orders got mixed up. He packed boxes himself. It wasn’t impressive – but it was in motion. The founders of Airbnb were broke, renting out air mattresses in their living room. The photos were bad. The idea was weird. They cringed too. But they launched it anyway – not because it was perfect, but because they were tired of waiting for it to be. When Instagram launched, it wasn’t even a photo app. It was a confusing location-based check-in tool. But they put it out there. They watched what people used. They stripped away what didn’t matter, and doubled down on what did. That kind of clarity only happens mid-flight.

None of them started with certainty. They started with a spark and moved through the fog. That’s the secret no one tells you: Perfection never comes first. Progress does. And progress is messy.

You will release things that feel beneath your standards.
You will ship work you know could be better.
You will hit “publish” and then immediately want to yank it back. (I feel this deeply as I write this.)

But you can’t skip that phase. You shouldn’t. That awkwardness is scar tissue. That’s how you grow. The mistake is thinking discomfort means you did something wrong. It doesn’t. It means you’re in motion. If you wait until the wood is perfectly stacked, the kindling precisely arranged, the night wind still... you’ll still be waiting next year. Meanwhile, someone else is sitting beside a scrappy little fire – warming their hands, learning what burns, tossing on new logs as they go.

The people who build things don’t wait until they’re proud. They begin, and then they get better. So yes, your early efforts will feel small. Incomplete. Not quite “you.” And yes, it’ll be uncomfortable to share them.

Sit with that. Let it sting. Then keep going.

Scared? Start anyway.
Feeling unqualified? Start anyway.
Doubtful about being consistent? Start anyway.

The warmth doesn’t come from perfection. It comes from lighting the match, again and again and again. So lets build the fire with what we have. Lets be brave enough to show our first flame.

The bonfire will come.