It starts with an idea, one that makes us feel kind of excited and maybe even a little nervous. (I know you’ve had one!)
Maybe we’ll start working on this idea. We might do a little research, create a thing or two related to our idea. Maybe we’ll share this little idea with a friend or family member, which could be met with enthusiasm (or – wah waahhhhh – some reasons why it won’t work).
And very often, that nifty little idea gets hung out to dry. We work on it sporadically, squeezed into small bits of time and then stop working on it altogether. It gets then buried under the living of life: chores, families, errands, work and, I’d wager, a few little nagging beliefs a lot of us carry around.
We might choose to believe people who said it wouldn’t work because they feed right into those beliefs we’re already carrying around. Beliefs that might sound something like this…
I’ll wait to do it when I’m ready.
And yet, that feeling of ready never seems to come. Even at the tender age of 48, I don’t feel ready. If I wait until I’m ready, I’ll be waiting until the end of my life which, according to Oliver Burkeman and his book titled as such, that’s about 4000 weeks. Not very long, is it?
I’m afraid nobody will like it.
It’s true – not everybody will like it – whatever it might be. And that’s ok. Or, at least, it has to be because that’s just reality! Somebody will like it and, as a side note, we seem to forget that we don’t like everything, either.
I’m not good enough.
Yes, you are. If you’re looking at people who are 10 steps or 10 years ahead of you, you’re going to feel that way. I have to remind myself of that all the time looking at other floral photographers or artists. The best line I read recently was “your older work should make you cringe” – because it means you’re better. But if we never start, if we don’t keep practicing and working at it, we will never find out how good we can be.
It’s not the right time.
Guess what? There won’t be! It didn’t feel like the right time when I made my first attempt at this 2 years ago (and caved into those little nagging beliefs). Honestly, it doesn’t feel like the right time now, either!
So, we keep waiting. Waiting for that magical point in the future, when we’ll feel ready or good enough or have more money or time. Gosh, I hate to break this to you but… it doesn’t happen on it’s own. It’s a moment when we decide, ok, NOW. Ready or not. (just like hide and seek!)
Really, though, can you ever have everything you need to start anything? If you haven’t experienced something yet, how do you know exactly what you need? Do you even know all the questions you should be asking?
As you start to walk on the way, the way appears. – Rumi
In a more straight-forward sentence: clarity doesn’t come before action. It comes from action.
It is in the doing that we figure things out. And even if we think we know the path we want to walk – or the idea of it at least – we don’t actually know where that path will lead. And yes, one ending is that we fail and it doesn’t work out (be sure and add that to our list of things that keep us from moving forward!).
I had an art therapy client opened an art therapy school – that was not something she ever intended to do but she went for it.
Sometimes the path you start on leads you to something really quite wonderful that has nothing to do with failure. And sometimes the path winds back on itself.
It winds back to something you may have wanted to do the first place but, because of all the reasons I listed above (and some I know I missed), you left it behind though you maybe always held a candle for it somewhere inside.
Which seems to have happened to me. My path has wound back to where I started when I was small and cute: writing, photography and art.
I wrote before I could write. I filled in composition books with incoherent scribbling but I was writing. I have photos of Jem and Barbie dolls acting out stories. Every birthday had art supplies as gifts.
As I write this, I remember the first floral photos I took on a whim. I remember looking at them and feeling a kind of recognition, a delight, that this was something I could really enjoy.
I have no idea where this little idea of mine leads but I’ll start here, by writing my blog posts and sharing my floral photos for sale.
