In last week’s blog “Out of the Shadows,” I talked about what it may look like to contemplate living your life outside of the expectations of others. This time of year is perfect to not only start to ask yourself these questions, but to take action.

When I first began Spoken Curls, my problem wasn’t that I didn’t know what I wanted to do. In fact, that was quite clear. I knew I loved to write and share a message with others.

My problem was getting started.

Oftentimes, the first step is usually the hardest one. It’s where you finally tell yourself, “Yes, I’m going to do this.” It’s very easy to avoid getting started on something, because we drain ourselves by thinking of steps 2-10, when we haven’t even gotten to step 1: starting.

We can’t see the full picture, so we don’t even take the time to pick up the brush and start painting. 

We’re all human and I can attest to doing these same things.

I’ve struggled with not knowing what EXACTLY I wanted to do, so I refrained from taking any action. At first, I didn’t have the idea of a blog or content, so I put it off for as long as I could. I blamed it on the fact that I just didn’t know where to start. 

The problem with this excuse is that we really don’t need to know where to start, we just have to get started. 

Instead of asking myself, “Where do I start?” I changed my perspective to ask myself, “what would I regret not starting?” That was something easier to answer. 

I knew that I wanted to share my words with others. Whether it was through a blog, books, or anything I could think of. Not doing that would have been a regret for me, because it meant I held myself back from what I truly wanted to do. I didn’t have to know how I would share my writing, I just knew it was something I had to do. 

This also relates to the idea of traveling more over the past year. I started 2022 knowing that travel was something I wanted to take advantage of. For someone who tries to plan every single detail of everything (which is impossible), I first became so nervous because I didn’t know where to start. Do I take a small trip? A more extravagant trip? Do I go alone? Do I go with friends? There were so many questions I felt that I had to answer, when the easiest thing to answer was that I’d regret not traveling at all. It didn’t matter how it would happen. After deciding that I would regret not taking up any opportunities to travel, more opportunities opened themselves up. I was able to travel for work, as well as taking trips with friends and family. 

To me, the answer gets simpler if we’re able to simplify what it is that we’re asking for. 

If I continued to ask myself “Where do I start?,” I’d easily get trapped into a spiral of options that would delay actually getting started. Asking myself, “What would I regret not starting?” gives me a more concrete answer. 

As you begin looking at what you want to accomplish for 2023, try to not bombard yourself with stress and anxiety on where to get started. Instead, decide what you would regret not starting. The thing that you know you’d be so proud of yourself for finally doing. I’m already proud of you and I know you won’t regret it 😉