Getting Started When You Feel Stuck
You know, for the longest time, I just felt like I was treading water. Not drowning, not exactly, but not really moving forward either. It was this constant, nagging feeling that I had all these things I wanted to do, all these projects piling up in my head, but actually pulling the trigger and really starting any of them? That was the killer. It felt like I was always waiting for the “perfect” moment, or for all the stars to align, or for some grand flash of inspiration to hit me like a lightning bolt.
I’d sit there, staring at a blank screen or a clean notebook, just… stuck. I’d research for hours, read articles, watch videos, fill my head with all the “how-to’s” and “best practices.” But then, when it came down to actually doing the thing, I’d freeze. It was like I was stuck in this never-ending pre-game warm-up, but the actual game never started. I’d tell myself, “Tomorrow, I’ll really get into it.” Or “Once I finish this other tiny thing, then I’ll tackle the big one.” And you can guess how that usually went down.
I remember one particularly frustrating Tuesday. I had this idea for a simple little app, nothing groundbreaking, just something to help me track my morning habits. I’d been kicking it around for weeks, maybe months. I had notebooks full of scribbles, mock-ups in my head, even a few half-baked lines of code. But every time I opened my laptop to work on it, I just felt this huge wall. This overwhelming sense of not being ready. Like, what if I messed it up? What if it was garbage? What if I started and then got bored and never finished? All these “what ifs” piled up and just suffocated any actual progress.
Then, it wasn’t a lightning bolt, more like a tiny, insistent whisper. I was flipping through an old book, one of those deep, ancient wisdom types, and something just jumped out at me. It talked about being at the brink, right before everything fully manifests. About the wisdom in that moment of “not yet completed,” when you’re literally on the edge of a new beginning. It wasn’t about having all the answers or seeing the whole path clearly. It was about understanding that being at the beginning is a state in itself, full of potential, full of learning, and totally okay to be messy.
Taking That First, Wobbly Step
And that’s when it hit me. I didn’t need to be perfect. I didn’t need to see the entire journey from start to finish. I just needed to start the journey. Seriously, it sounds so simple, right? Like, “Duh, obviously.” But for someone like me, who gets caught up in the planning and the perfectionism, it was a revelation. It wasn’t about finishing something; it was about the act of initiating it, embracing the uncertainty of the first few steps.
So, the next morning, I decided I was going to try something different. Forget the big app idea for a second. I picked the smallest, most insignificant thing I could think of. Something I had put off for ages: organizing my digital photos. Not all of them, just the ones from last month. My goal wasn’t to finish the whole archive; it was just to start. I told myself: “Just open the folder. Just look at five pictures. That’s it.”
I went to my computer, felt that familiar resistance, but pushed through. I opened the folder. Looked at five pictures. And then, you know what happened? I looked at ten. Then I realized how easy it was to create a new folder for that month. Then I started dragging and dropping. Within thirty minutes, I had sorted all the photos from last month. It wasn’t perfect categorization, but they were sorted. And I felt this small, quiet fizz of accomplishment.
That little win was huge for me. It wasn’t about the photos; it was about proving to myself that I could actually begin something and make a tiny bit of progress. The next day, I applied the same logic to my app idea. Instead of trying to build the whole login system or the complex data storage, I said: “Just create a new project file. Just write ‘Hello World’ on the screen.”
Embracing the “Not Yet”
And that’s what I did. I opened my development environment, made a new project, and literally just got some text to display. It took me maybe fifteen minutes. It was utterly meaningless in the grand scheme of the app, but it was a start. It was one foot in front of the other.
My daily practice from then on became about identifying the absolute smallest possible “first step” for whatever project or task was looming. It looked a bit like this:
- Identify the big thing: Let’s say, “Write that blog post about X.”
- Break it down to the tiniest start: “Open a blank document.” Or “Write three bullet points for the outline.”
- Set a ridiculously low time limit: “Do this for 10 minutes.” Or “Just until one tiny thing is done.”
- No judgment, just action: Whatever comes out, it’s fine. The goal isn’t quality; it’s initiation.
It sounds almost silly, I know. But doing this, consistently, for a few weeks, completely changed my relationship with starting things. That ancient wisdom, that idea of embracing the “not yet finished” state as its own powerful beginning, started making real sense in my daily life. I stopped waiting for perfection. I stopped waiting for inspiration. I just started opening those project files, writing those first few ugly lines, making those tiny movements forward.
Projects that felt like insurmountable mountains suddenly just became a series of small, manageable hills. Some days, I’d just do the absolute minimum and stop. Other days, that tiny initial push would carry me much further. But the key was, I was always moving. Always beginning. Always taking that wobbly, uncertain, but absolutely crucial first step.
It’s about understanding that the biggest hurdle is often just getting out of the starting blocks. Once you’re moving, even slowly, you build momentum. And that momentum, my friend, is what actually gets things done. Trust me, if you’re stuck like I was, just try taking the smallest, most ridiculous first step you can imagine. You might be surprised at where that tiny beginning leads.
