Hey Reader,

Yesterday, I went to the end-of-school-year dance recital for my boyfriend's daughter, and it was funny to see the contrast between the young kids messy and cute dances followed up by the advanced teams' older kids dances.

It made me think about the process of starting.

Start messy

If you really think about it, anything that is beautiful and amazing in this world started messy and non-exceptional first.

And the thing is that the only people who create beautiful, amazing things are the ones who are willing to do the messy version first. The ones who are willing to stick with the discomfort of not being good at it yet.

When we were kids, this seemed to be easier because everyone assumed we were still learning and that we were beginners.

Watching those little girls reminded me how much grace we naturally give beginners.

Nobody expects them to be perfect.

Nobody expects them to look like the seniors who had been dancing for ten years.

Yet somehow, when we're adults, we expect ourselves to be experts on day one.

But this reality of being beginners, of needing to practice things to then improve at them, doesn't truly change when we become adults.

Doing anything new means that it will be messy, and ugly, and mediocre the first few times (and maybe even after a while). And you have to be willing to be bad at it before you can be good at it.

We give children permission to be beginners.

We rarely give ourselves the same permission.

When you start anything, you won't be able to see the beauty yet. You may not have the strategy, the roadmap, or the vision of what it could become yet.

The good news is you don't need any of that.

To get started on any meaningful endeavor in your life, you just need to start. Messy. Ugly. Mediocre. Uncomfortable at first.

Then, you have to keep going at it and practice it over and over again.

Consistency is the path to becoming good at anything

At yesterday's dance recital, it was easy to distinguish the better dancers from the ones who were beginners.

Age was a simple give away in some occasions. There were numerous cute groups of little kids who would look at each other while moving from one side to another and doing cartwheels. And everyone was rooting and clapping for them because we all knew it was their first time on stage.

But you could also see the ones that had years of experience and of doing the same thing over and over. Those were the ones that were advanced and senior, and which received awards for years of experience (5, 10, 15 years) at the school.

Practice is the precursor to quality. You have to put in the reps to build that ‘muscle’.

You cannot do things once and hope that they will be of the highest quality.

You have to do things over and over again. Every single day. For them (and you) to improve and get better.

Consistency is getting out of bed and getting up to do the work when you don't want to, when you feel tired and don’t feel like it.

It doesn’t look impressive, remarkable, or exciting. It’s the opposite, it’s doing the boring repetitive task over and over. But that’s why it works.

Maybe the reason you're not where you want to be yet isn't because you're incapable.

Maybe it's because you're still trying to skip the beginner stage.

You're waiting until you feel ready.

Until you're confident.

Until you know exactly what you're doing.

But every expert, every performer, every business owner, every creator, every dancer you admire was once the beginner everyone was cheering for.

The difference isn't talent.

It's that they kept showing up long enough to improve.

So this week, ask yourself:

And what could change if I gave myself the permission to start messy?

P.S. Self-belief isn’t built through waiting. It’s built through proof. If you’ve been struggling with overthinking or feeling stuck between who you are and who you want to become, this episode is for you. Watch here.​

Love creating your mind one day at a time? Forward this to a friend so they can get in on the action and sign up below. Subscribe to The Created Mind Thank you for reading and sharing, Jenny ​​​​

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