Starting something new can be terrifying. Especially starting out from scratch when you feel like you should be much further along. Perhaps you’re in your 40’s and are just learning to ride a bike or swim. Perhaps you are in your 30’s and just picking up an instrument or learning to read music for the very first time. You will be learning from books that might be geared toward a much younger audience, or so you might think. Perhaps you are taking up dance, at the grand old age of 13 (which is suprisingly old in the world of dance). You will be in a class for much younger kids and you will look and feel gigantic and awkward and towering. But you will be at the right level. Wherever you are i actually the right level.

I want to start this writing project, and while I know I’m not too old, it’s scary. I know that I am doing this for my kids, so that they have something to guide them whenever they are ready for it. I even hope to put this into a book format for them some day. So, I could only be doing this now – it wouldn’t have made sense earlier. Yet, I have been hesitant to take the first step. I have journaled, I have talked, I have advised, I have written, and I have expressed myself, sometimes too much, but I have never put myself out there where other people just might read my thought process, words or advice. However, I am choosing to give myself grace to just simply start. I am taking a step. I do not know where my next step will be, but I will just continue taking steps. Full stop.

Question: When in your life have you felt like you were years or even decades behind? How did that feel to you?

Exercise: Identify something that you have always wanted to do, but you have been afraid of being behind or maybe not good enough. Take the first step – do the first thing.