Getting started has always been a challenge for me. Hell, it’s taken me fifteen minutes to get started with the opening of this post. It’s not easy to start something new, especially when I have no experience with it. Not to mention, all the excuses and reasons I can find to not get started and “do it later”. I’m sure if you’re reading this you can relate to some extent. I’ve noticed it seems to be a common issue among people these days.

For me, this entire project (meechio) was one big “getting started” project. In the midst of summer 2022, I didn’t have much going on so I felt obligated to get started on something. I had no idea what that something was, but I knew I had a couple months to get to work and make some progress on something.

That something was me learning how to code. Naturally, it felt extremely overwhelming at first. I knew I had to start with the boring part, which was simply learning the terms and absolute basics. This took a few days of me watching YouTube and reading articles, all the while I was getting frustrated. I’m not the most patient person, especially if I’m not being mentally stimulated, but I stuck with the process. Along the way I created little projects for myself, as most coders do, to try new things and create small pieces of work to demonstrate I was making progress with my learning.

Fast forward a month, and I came around to creating the meechio website. To be honest, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with the website (and to some extent I still don’t). However, creating the website was the most engaged I had felt with any work in a very long time. I had complete freedom with creative decisions and I could slowly feel a vision coming together in my head. About halfway through, I had the idea of turning it into a blog.

Why I had this idea, I have no idea. I’ve never been a fan of writing and it’s never been my forte (fun fact: forte is pronounced as fort). I still struggle with commas and feel as if I’m just spewing a bunch of nonsense. But that is exactly why getting started is so difficult. Our inner perfectionist wants us to have everything figured out before we start, but in reality that will never be the case. You just have to start and let the rest follow. Do it your way and don’t give a damn if it’s not perfect or won’t meet the expectations of the invisible critic you want to please. For example, I started my previous sentence with “but” knowing this is grammatically unsound, but I really don’t care because I couldn't think of an alternative word.

Anyway, I’ve accepted the fact that my coding and writing are not perfect and I will never be the best at either of those skills. I do know however, that in a year from now I will have a year’s worth of work to look back on and be proud of. Improvements and new ideas are inevitable along the way, you just have to simply get started.

Advice to my future self: Risks aren't that scary once you take them. Don't wait to try new things, simply dive in and find excitement.