Do you have an idea? Do you want to start something new? A project, a business, a work of art, a book, a course… whatever it is, stop hesitating. Stop over thinking, over analysing and just get started.

There are so many important, meaningful things we’re meant to do, but we create these unnecessary hurdles in our minds that make us hesitate. To celebrate the important milestone of reaching the 99th episode on the show (a journey that I took forever to begin, but has turned out to be highly rewarding), I’ve done a deep dive into a few common mental blocks that lead to starting trouble. And how we can overcome them and just get started already!

Listen on the embedded player below, or on your preferred podcast player. If reading is your jam, then scroll down for the transcript. Enjoy! 🙂

“Don’t be hesitant. Be confident about your ability, your interests, your capabilities, the time that you can carve out for yourself, the discipline that you will automatically inculcate, the expertise that you will gain as you keep going ahead. You know everything is growth, everything is learning. So be confident that you’re going to learn. And don’t let go of this opportunity of creating something beautiful, meaningful, important, just because of starting trouble.”

Susmitha Veganosaurus – The Feel Good Factor Podcast

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Transcript of: Want to begin something new? Here’s how to stop delaying and just get started!

(gently edited for a better reading experience)

Hello lovely people, we’re on episode 99! Yay! Well, I know 100 is the traditionally celebratory number, but there’s something so beautiful about 99, don’t you think? It’s so nice. It’s the last episode with a two digit number before I graduate on to a three digit number.

This is so exciting for me, and it’s been a lovely journey podcasting so far. I got lots of interesting things to learn. Relationships were formed with people. I got to really explore, and change tracks, and it’s been quite an adventure. I can’t wait to see where else this path of podcasting takes me.

I’m so grateful to have all of you, the listeners, coming here, listening to my episodes, writing to me with your experiences. I mean, that is so, so precious when you reach out to me and tell me what you’ve thought or how a particular episode made an impact, or resonated with you in what way. How it applies to your life, and all of it. It’s been so beautiful connecting with so many of you over the years.

Yeah, years!

2019 December is when I began podcasting, and now here we are

Yes, I did take some long stretches of breaks in the middle. Didn’t do too much in a lot of 2021 and 2022. But closer to the end of last year (that’s 2022), again I started podcasting. And I’ve been diligently doing one episode a week since then. It’s been so nice to get back into this zone of creativity, conversation, and lots of contemplation even for me.

Throughout my days, when I meet someone, when I have different conversations, or when I come across some content that I read in a book, or a quote… wherever, my podcast is always at the back of my mind. It just pops up! It’s like, “oh, this would be a great topic to discuss on the show”. That’s always on my mind.

It’s really a very satisfying, very fulfilling feeling to be able to run a podcast. So thank you all once again, all of you who’ve been there right from the beginning, or those who’ve discovered me more recently, all of you, each and every one of you. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast and supporting this show with your love – listens, the reviews that you’ve left, the messages that you’ve sent me, all of it, all of it. Thank you so, so, so much!

Considering this milestone, I wanted to talk about doing stuff. More importantly, getting things started!

Often, a lot of us have these ideas in our minds to start a project, like “let me start something new”, but it just stays there as an idea. You’ll keep thinking about it once in a while, maybe even feel guilty that you haven’t done anything about it. But then it just gets left, you know, you don’t do anything about it. It stays, it remains a dream.

Sometimes yes, it’s not possible to get started on things, but for the most part the starting trouble is based on hurdles that we can easily overcome. Unnecessarily we create these hurdles before we begin something.

So today’s episode is all about you just getting started

Do you have an idea? Is there something you want to do? A new blog, a new business, new creative art project? A book? A course? Whatever it is you want to begin, just get started.

Now one of the biggest reasons we have starting trouble is because we’re waiting for the right moment. This desire for perfection, of all the circumstances falling into place so that it becomes okay for you to start on this new thing, new venture, new project.

Here’s the thing, there’s never going to be the perfect time

There is no perfect time, that doesn’t exist. So don’t wait for circumstances to fall into place. Just get started.

There’s a saying that goes, “Done is better than perfect”. It basically means getting something done at all is always so much better than waiting for it to become perfect before you get it done or before you start on it.

So keep that in mind the next time you think you need certain circumstances to fall into place properly. And don’t wait for that. Just begin.

Another excuse we tell ourselves is, “I don’t have enough time to focus on this right now”

Time is something you make. It’s up to you, completely, one hundred percent up to you. Time will not magically appear. We all have the same twenty four hours a day in our lives. So if there’s something you want to do, you need to make the time for it. You need to carve out a time slot for it in your day.

Even if you can start by doing fifteen minutes a day of work, or half an hour a day, put that much into this new idea of yours, that still goes a long way. Because you’re still doing bit by bit by bit, and you’re chugging along, you’re moving forward with it.

So don’t let time constraints stop you either. Make time, make whatever little small amount of time you can to just begin, because once you begin, you will be able to figure out how to make more time for it. Even figured out if more time is needed or just this much time is enough, you know. Everyday committing only a short period of time, if that is enough.

And people chug along, just get things done, get so much done. There’s a lot of progress, there’s a lot of productivity just by doing a little day, taking one baby step at a time.

So yes don’t wait for time to suddenly, magically appear in your life

There’s a great book that I love. I’ve read it twice already. It’s called Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. Those of you on my newsletter would have heard me rave about this while I was reading the book, and later also. It’s a wonderful book about time.

It’s a very non-traditional time management book. Not even exactly management, it’s more like time embracing. Embracing it for what it is. If you feel like you don’t have time to do things that are meaningful to you, then definitely read this book so that you will be able to understand how to use your time in beautiful, meaningful, creative, productive ways. In ways that truly matter.

The third hurdle is when we think that, “I’m not good enough”

“I need to study more, I need to hone my skills more, I need to learn more before I begin. Who am I to begin? I know nothing.” And that’s really not true at all!

There’s this author called Jean-Jacques Rousseau. As if name didn’t make it obvious, he’s a French guy. From really, really long ago. He’s written this autobiography called The Confessions.

In that there’s one thing he mentions which really hits home, for those of us who think that we need to be really good at something, we need to be experts at something before we even attempt or before we even start anything.

He says that as a professor, all he needed to do is be one chapter ahead of his students. That’s it. That’s all he needed to do. Because one chapter ahead is still ahead of them. You study the one chapter, and the next day you teach them in class. That’s all you need to know. It makes a lot of sense, right?

So all you need to know is what you already know about this particular topic, about this particular area of interest that you have. And you start. There will be people who will need it.

There are people who are those few steps behind you who will find it helpful

This is something I learned while doing the podcast. Initially when I started recording the episodes I’d think, “how much do I really know about this topic?” or, “what authority do I have to teach about business, or any of the other things that I talk about?” You know, spirituality manifestation, mindfulness, all of it.

And as I kept releasing the episodes anyway, I would share whatever I knew, not trying to make it perfect. I just shared whatever I knew, and published the episodes. And as I kept publishing, the feedback I got made me realise that, “yeah, I’m still ahead of a few others. And what they’re saying is, the information that I’ve shared has been very helpful to them.”

So don’t stop yourself, or don’t delay starting something, just because you think you might not be good enough yet

You will become better and better and better at it as you progress. You just get started. Don’t think, don’t overthink so much.

With the podcast also, I’d been wanting to do my own podcast for many months, but I kept thinking, thinking, thinking. Analysing like, “What do I do? What topic should I choose? How do I go about it?”

Finally, one day I said, “you know what, I’m just gonna start!”

All I needed to do is learn the very basics of recording and publishing an episode. My initial audio quality wasn’t that great. I just started it. And then over time, I realised, “okay, how can I edit audio? How can I clean things out and make it better?”

If you don’t hear a lot of “ums” and stuttering and stuff in my episodes, it’s because I edit them out. It’s not because I magically speak very eloquently all the time. There are a lot of “ums” and whatnots that come in.

Yes, I leave a couple in there, you know, to make it more realistic. But other than that, it’s all because of editing that you hear this kind of audio quality.

So yes, you don’t have to worry about the quality of whatever you start with

You don’t have to worry about what people may think or say. With whatever you have, whatever is accessible, you begin. You begin in a small way. Nobody needs to begin in a huge way. You just start small and then you slowly develop on it over time, and become better and better and better.

Then another hurdle is not having things set up. Often when we want to start something, we hesitate or we feel lazy because the things aren’t all set up.

In many cases prepping work is something that makes us hesitate to do things, or makes us delay

For example, I make handmade jewellery with wire, copper, polymer clay, crystals, and all kinds of stuff. So I make completely vegan handmade jewellery. For years I ran it as a business online. I would make my pieces, then list them on Etsy, and ship them worldwide as people ordered them. Then I stopped when I started becoming very busy with my restaurant all those years ago.

After the restaurant closed, I wanted to get back to it. I wanted to get back to making jewellery again because it gives me a lot of fulfilment. I lose myself in it. It’s one of those things where I go into deep flow. You know, the flow I spoke about a few episodes ago. That is something I tap into easily when I’m making jewellery with wire and all those things.

But the hesitation was, “oh, I have to set up the studio! Everything’s packed away. I have to open everything, set it, keep things ready, then start.” We moved to a different place last year so I’m like, “okay, I don’t have the space to do this. I don’t have the right location to do this.”

So many things that I contemplated and then delayed, delayed, delayed

But last month after I launched my Harmonious Multi-Passionate Life course, I had time. I suddenly, I had this creative gap. I grabbed that opportunity, and before diving into something else which was easier to start off with, I took out all my jewellery stuff – the tools, the supplies.

There’s this one table that I have, my big table. I just arranged whatever I could right there on the table without thinking too much, without trying to be overly organised. Some basic organisation was enough, and then I started making.

Oh my god! A few days in a row, that’s all I could do. I would sit and work, work, work, make all these earrings and stuff for hours together. Then go to sleep at night dreaming of them, and then wake up the next morning with so much to look forward to! I’d go running back to my studio as soon as I could, and then start working again.

It was so joyful, and I was like, “Why did I delay so long to get back to this?!”

I realised that that setup process really made a difference. And now I’ve not even packed it away. I’ve left all those tools and supplies open. It’s right there so that when I’m passing by here and there I’m looking at it again and again. And it’s so easy.

The moment I feel the inspiration, or if I get an idea, I can just swoop down onto my table and start making stuff. So yeah, my point is setting things up, keeping things accessible and convenient for yourself, just make yourself do that. And then you won’t have trouble going forward, or starting things.

Of course I gave you the example of my jewellery studio, but even for things like, if you want to do something online, say for example, you’re building a website or you’re starting a blog or something like that. You have those tabs or windows, those different apps on the computer open.

When you shut it down, before you shut it down, set it up in such a way that when you turn on the computer, all of these start up. You don’t have to one by one start them. That just makes it so much easier for you to swoop into it. So make things easy for yourself, set things up.

The setup process itself is a lot of joy because there’s that potential and excitement

While you’re setting it up you think, “I’m going to create something amazing now. I’m going to dive into this. It’s going to be so much fun.” So set things up, keep things accessible for yourself. And you’ll be able to get into the flow of just doing something a lot sooner.

So yeah, those were all the different hurdles that I wanted to share with you. And I strongly want to encourage you to overcome them.

Don’t overthink, don’t over analyse, just get started.

Just begin with baby steps. Take those first few steps and you’ll see the magic of how things flow.

Don’t be hesitant. Be confident about your ability, your interests, your capabilities, the time that you can carve out for yourself, the discipline that you will automatically inculcate, the expertise that you will gain as you keep going ahead.

You know everything is growth, everything is learning. So be confident that you’re going to learn. And don’t let go of this opportunity of creating something beautiful, meaningful, important, just because of starting trouble.

All right, this is it for episode 99 (smiling wide every time I’m saying that)

I’ll come back with another celebratory episode next week. And I’m so glad once again to have all of you here, listening and supporting. Drop me a message, an email, and share your thoughts about the podcast.

And sign up for my newsletter, The Feel Good Tribe. You’ll immediately receive a welcome email, hit reply and connect with me. I’d love to chat with you, hear about whatever your favourite episodes were so far in the podcast. Or how it’s made any kind of impact or difference in your life. What you have resonated with. All of it, all of it. I’d love to get to know you. So yes, you know, connect with me.

Talk to you again soon. Take care.

Transcribed using Otter