Getting started can be very hard for people who have trouble with beginnings. After all, where do beginnings begin?
—Dorthy Bryant—
Most us us have trouble getting started at one time or another. It’s a common phenomenon, whether the project is Christmas cookies, an annual report, or cleaning the attic: ” I just don’t know where to begin.”
It’s a good rule to begin with ourselves, in the moment that is. Start the project where we are now. The other things that are necessary—details from the past and plans for the future— will reveal themselves as the project takes shape.
Sometimes we will begin, like writers, by talking about how hard it is to begin. This seems to oil the wheels; they start to turn, and before we know it, we’ve begun (though we may have to throw away the first paragraph).
Trying to begin at the beginning is a good way to drive myself mad. I will grasp the tools that are at hand: myself and the moment.