Start Before You’re Ready

There’s a moment before you begin something new where everything feels uncertain.

You don’t have all the answers.
You’re not entirely confident.
And you’re not sure how it’s going to turn out.

Most people wait there.

They wait until they feel ready.
Until they have a clearer plan.
Until they feel more confident.

But what I’ve learned—again and again—is that readiness doesn’t come first.

It comes after you begin.

When I was an elementary principal, our school welcomed over 100 new Somali students.

It was a significant shift, and naturally, there were questions about how to best support them.

At one point, a teacher said, “We need a manual.”

And I understood what she meant.

We had welcomed students who were new to the language, new to the classroom, and in many cases, new to the structure of school as we knew it.

There was a genuine desire to support them well.

But I remember thinking…

what we really needed was something different.

We needed to get to know our students.

That moment stayed with me.

And it led me to do something I had never done before.

I decided to write a book.

I had never written a book before.
I didn’t know what I was doing.

But I started anyway.

That book—Through My Eyes—filled a need. It found its way into libraries across the country and continues to be used in classrooms today.

Not because I had everything figured out when I began…
but because I was willing to start without having all the answers.

I’ve seen that same pattern show up in other areas of my life.

When I planted my first flower seeds, I didn’t see progress right away.

For a while, it looked like nothing was happening.

Just dirt.
Time.
Effort.

But slowly, things began to grow.

And with that growth came something else—confidence.

Not before.

Even when I picked up a paintbrush for the first time, I didn’t feel confident. I didn’t know what I was doing.

But I started anyway.

And over time, something began to take shape.

I think this is where a lot of people get stuck.

Not in the dreaming.
Not even in the deciding.

But in the waiting.

Waiting to feel ready.
Waiting to feel confident.
Waiting to feel certain.

But those things don’t come first.

They come from doing.

If there’s something you’ve been thinking about starting—writing, creating, building, or changing something in your life—you don’t need to have it all figured out.

You don’t need to feel ready.

You just need to begin.

And then, just as importantly, you need to stay with it long enough to see it grow.

Because growth doesn’t happen all at once.

It happens quietly. Gradually. Almost invisibly at first.

Until one day, you look back and realize something has changed.

Not just in what you’ve created…

But in you.

You don’t need to feel ready to begin.
But if you keep going… both clarity and confidence will come.