How to Start So Badly, It Finally Works

Only Way Dreams Are Born

"If you bring forth what is within you, it will save you. Yes. But this saving is not just for you. It is for the common good. If you bring forth what is within you, it will save the world. It will rescue the times. It will save the whole people. Likewise: If you do not bring forth what is within you it will destroy you. But not just you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, it will destroy the whole people."

— Stephen Cope, The Great Work of Your Life

Introduction

For years I have been tortured by the work I didn't do.

I have a hunch you have too.

I'm talking about the Thing you yearn to do but somehow can't get yourself to start. The Thing that even if you start, you get scared and let go.

I don't mean the work you think you "should" be doing—not the digital product that will bring you side income or the pilates course for the perfect body.

I mean THE THING: the hiking trip, the race, the painting, the retreat, the book, the app, the movement, the community. It's rarely the most practical choice, but you can't imagine not doing it at some point.

It's what disturbs your stomach with both excitement and anxiety (sometimes difficult to differentiate between the two). Sometimes it brings a strange sense of peace and belonging despite never having done it before.

How come something you've never done before can feel so familiar?

Regardless of how it feels, it is the thing that you know is the right one for you to try.

Maybe -like me- you've spent years watching others doing the Thing. You educated yourself to the point where preparation turned into procrastination. Or you convinced yourself that you weren't good enough, hoping that would stop the torture.

But it didn't.

This is my personal guide to how to stop getting tortured by the Thing and start acting on it. I call it the ASIC framework: Accept, Shift, Implement, Come Back.

This isn't some fancy framework from a million-dollar coach but a real-world, messy, everyday process for finally doing the Thing we can’t imagine not doing.

Step 1: Accept

Accept that it will take longer than expected

"Desire is the contract we make with ourselves to be unhappy until we get it," Naval said in an interview with Tim Ferriss, stopping me in my tracks.

Because of how our brains work, when we find a Thing, we can't help but create a persona around it: The person who does the Thing. Then we develop a strong desire towards becoming that person. We assume being that person feels much better than being us.

This creates a distortion in our psyches. We want to become that person as fast as possible, thus the moment in front of us start to feel impossible. Paradoxically, this keeps us from taking action because the stakes get too high. The Thing becomes salvation. Becomes urgent. Critical. Survival. Any action from this space feels desperate and fearful because if we don't get the Thing, are we doomed to eternal misery?

It was 2021 when I first dreamt of a career break and got upset when I couldn’t do it. 2022, when I surrendered to the wait. 2023–24, when I fell in love with the unfolding and not the destination. 2025 now that I am living it.

This break didn't feel like salvation, it felt like play. The last four years weren't time-out; they were as colorful as this moment of typing these words.

Natalie Docherty recently wrote a beautiful piece on not missing the harvests of our times. I keep finding myself missing the harvest during periods of being a beginner as I hold my breath until mastery comes. This is my oath not to do that.

Accept that it will not be as good as you expected

I'm already disappointed by this newsletter while I am typing it. I know I'll be disappointed while editing it. Nothing I create is as perfect or beautiful as it looks in my imagination.

For years, my Type A alter ego couldn't handle this. I shared and deleted words. I tried once but gave up if it didn't succeed. I tried to run, again and again, but lost my will as soon as I lost my breath.

Until one day, I read the story of Shiraz—the Persian architect—in Oliver Burkeman's 4000 Weeks. He was tasked with designing the greatest mosque the Islamic world had ever seen. He drew breathtaking plans. People praised him, told him it was extraordinary. And then? He locked himself in his room for three days and burned every sketch.

Why? Because nothing he could ever build would live up to his vision. To make something real meant to make it finite, flawed, worldly. He couldn't withstand that gap between fantasy and inevitable reality.

That story changed me.

If I truly wanted to do the Thing, I would have to do it imperfectly. I would have to bring it into the real world, knowing it would be messy, incomplete, distorted.

So I stopped hoping to be proud of the final product.And started being proud of something else:

The courage it takes to ship something imperfect.

Accept that it won't be easy

There's a cultural phenomenon that tricked us into believing that if something was for you, it would be easy. The reality couldn't be further from the truth.

I don't mean the Thing itself won't feel enjoyable once you're in flow. I mean it won't be easy to start it, and it won't be easy to keep doing it until you resolve the personal scripts keeping you from finding joy in the process.

Not only will the Thing force you to step into the unknown, but it will also walk you to your ego death. And nothing with "death" in the title comes easy.

The Thing asks you to face your fears, see your vulnerabilities, step out of yourself, transform, keep going without external validation, and rejoin after failure. None of this is comfortable.

It will probably be one of the hardest but most satisfying journeys of your life.

Accept the grief these realizations bring

After you accept that you want to be the person who does the Thing perfectly and easily, and after you accept that this perfect version isn't possible, you must grieve the version of yourself you daydreamed of becoming.

You must grieve the future that felt more like a Barbie movie than the red-pilled Matrix.

Sit in that grief, feel it, and then let it go. Join us in the real world—the world Glennon Doyle calls "brutiful": beautiful and brutal simultaneously.

Now we're closer to finally doing the Thing.

Step 2: Shift

Shift your focus from what the Thing will provide for you to how it will serve others

Fear is self-focused. Day to day, our fear is about us. What will happen if we give that speech, launch that project, get stuck in traffic, are eaten by an alligator…

And generosity is about others. “How can I help?”

Jumping in the water to save a struggling swimmer stops us from worrying about how we look in our suit or whether the water is cold. And if you’re worried about the customer instead of your quota, making a sales call is easier too..

Seth Godin

It is fascinating how quickly we make doing the Thing all about ourselves. Will it work? Will I be good at it? Will people care?

It’s natural, but it’s also a trap. When the Thing becomes your salvation, it carries too much weight. The pressure makes it unbearable to start. Or impossible to enjoy.

But creation, at its core, is an act of generosity.

Even our most personal choices are rarely just personal. Even the things we do for ourselves can open doors for others.

I used to think that only explicitly “helpful” things counted as service. A nonprofit. A product. A piece of art that teaches. But sometimes, doing the Thing is also an act of service simply because you’re doing it in a world that told you not to. A world where doing the Thing that “makes you come alive instead of getting ahead” can feel like a quiet revolution.

Paul Millerd made “coming alive over getting ahead” his personal quest and without meaning to, he paved the way for hundreds recalibrate their own.

So, maybe the right question is not “How will this make me look?”, but “How am I being part of a larger story?”.

Shift the source of your confidence from current skills to your ability to learn

For years, I treated the Thing as a test: something designed to measure whether I had what it takes. When I inevitably failed at it, I resorted to cynicism. I told myself it wasn’t really my thing anyway.

It’s shocking how closely this mimics our experience in school. We were raised in systems that claimed to reward growth but ranked us against others. We were taught mistakes are part of the process, while realising one F could alter the trajectory of our lives.

No wonder we give up on doing Thing at the first sign of defeat.

But here’s the truth: what the Thing asks of you is not innate talent. It’s not mastery on the first try. It’s effort. Effort to show up. To keep going. To get better. To fail and begin again.

Take a moment to remember a time you learned your way into something: a role, a skill, a relationship, a way of being. That’s the muscle we need to re- build. Not perfection. Not brilliance. But the unshakable trust that you can figure it out as you go.

And while that might sound simple, it’s actually a quiet rebellion. Because this culture taught us to measure ourselves against others, to see failure as shameful. It pretended to glorify failure while punishing it relentlessly.

We never learned to trust ourselves as learners. The Thing asks us to do that now.

It asks us to join the resistance.

Shift from fear to curiosity

Sometimes what the Thing asks of us feels too much, too scary. Our dreams frighten us. "How can I possibly do that?" we think, getting stuck in fear.

We can shift from "How can I possibly do this?" to the curious question: "Who would I have to become to do this?" This is the shift from resignation to possibility.

When I first began dreaming about taking a career break, I kept asking: “How can I possibly walk away from a stable job?” That question overwhelmed me. But when I shifted it to, “Who would I have to become to trust myself in uncertainty?” something softened.

Years ago, Matt Dahlia - a former member of one of my favorite YouTube channels, Yes Theory, put out a video about his Ironman journey. In it, he turns to his friend and coach and quietly asks:

“But what if it’s not worth it?”

And the answer he receives is something I’ve never forgotten:

“It’s always worth it. You just… you don’t wanna get attached to the result. The result for us… is who we get to be because of it.”

Read that again. Let it hit.

And wonder:

Who would I get to become because I finally did the Thing?

Not the polished image of yourself. But the version that got stretched, broken open, and pieced back together.

The version that got larger because of the Thing.

Step 3: Implement

Meet yourself where you are

I grew up with deep insecurities about my appearance, and no real relationship with movement. In my twenties, that began to catch up with me. My body and my mind were both asking for care. So I did what I thought a responsible adult should do: I signed up for a gym.

I paid for months, even years of gym memberships with a horrible feeling that I was constantly failing myself. The truth was, I wasn’t just resisting exercise. I was dreading the feeling of being a beginner, of being visible in a space where my body didn’t feel like it belonged. I didn’t know how to name that discomfort. So I judged myself relentlessly instead.

Everything changed when I fell in love with nature in Luxembourg. I wanted to do long hikes, to walk for hours - even days and feel alive in my body. And to do that, I knew I’d need to get stronger, however long it takes.

So I began. Slowly. Gently. I started with weekly online yoga sessions with someone I adored and felt safe with. Eventually, I found a 55-year-old personal trainer who had turned her living room into a modular gym. Just the two of us, learning what I liked and didn’t like, slowly expanding my limits.

That year, I ran my first 5K around the pyramids. Maybe an ordinary achievement for many, but for me, it was special. Something I thought impossible became possible because I stopped judging myself and met myself where I was with compassion and care.

Now the treks I saved don't look so hard to execute, while every day, most days, I challenge myself in a gym where I work out alongside dozens of people.

Be kind enough to yourself by meeting yourself where you are.

See how kindness transforms any life - even your own when you allow it.

Don't set goals, create experiments

Have you heard of the “Valley of Disappointment” from Atomic Habits?

James Clear describes it as the place we all pass through when we’re doing the work but not yet seeing results. We expect growth to be linear. In reality, progress is more like compound interest: it accumulates invisibly first. The clash site of our expectations with reality is that valley where most people give up.

But I want to take it one step further.

The Thing doesn’t just challenge our expectations about timing. It asks us to surrender our obsession with external markers altogether. It asks: Did you show up today or not? That’s the measure. If you showed up, you get a point. If you failed but came back, you get a point. If you practiced with the intention to grow, you get another point. These are internal markers. Quiet, invisible, powerful.

This shift mirrors the experimental mindset Anne-Laure Le Cunff writes about in Tiny Experiments.

A goal sounds like: “Get 5,000 newsletter subscribers in 6 months.”

An experiment sounds like: “Publish one newsletter a week for 12 weeks.”

The Thing ask you to go through the valley of disappointment without disappointment — but with internal pride of showing up.

Implement creative constraints

The “paradox of choice,” coined by psychologist Barry Schwartz, explains something many of us feel but can’t name: the more options we have, the harder it becomes to choose. We assume infinite possibilities will feel freeing, but they usually feel paralysing.

For years, I wanted to start a YouTube channel. But there were so many decisions to make: where to film, how to edit, what gear I’d need. The same thing happened with writing. I longed to move beyond journaling and share words that might matter to someone else. But every time I opened a blank page, the pressure of doing it perfectly kept me from writing at all.

The breakthrough came when I made a pact with myself: one video and one newsletter per week for three months. That decision forced others. I chose to shoot in my room, which dictated majority of the editing decisions. I studied my favorite essays and built a simple structure so blank page wouldn’t paralyse me again.

I call these choices creative constraints.

And this is what I learned: constraints don’t shrink your freedom. They focus it.

They pull your attention out of the swirl of infinite beginnings and into the only thing that matters- finally starting.

Step 4: Come Back

Allow yourself to fail at following through

You will fail. The consistency that personal development gurus advocate for is largely a myth reserved for people whose whole life is about doing the Thing.

I know you have trials, setbacks, mood swings, responsibilities, and sometimes a brain that just won't let you do the Thing.

And, I am angry. I am angry that they made us feel like inconsistency wasn't normal. We looked at the chains of actions we broke, the Duolingo streaks we missed, the mornings we couldn't wake up early to write, and we made that mean something about ourselves.

"Why can't you keep up?" we blamed ourselves. "Look at all those others doing it."

If I take a step back, I'm actually amazed by my brain's ability to simultaneously compare me to a fitness influencer, my favourite writer, a business guru, and a spiritual guide. Somehow it trusts me so much that it assumes I can be all of them while telling me I can never be any of them.

And they say paradoxes are hard for humans when this is just a random day in my brain! 😄

You have to stop judging yourself for not being picture-perfect consistent.

I read about the concept called “Most Days” from Emma Gannon yesterday while I was writing this newsletter.

So, do the Thing most days, and see how your guilt dissipates, while your joy shines through.

Allow yourself to start again and again

I'll tell you what gurus aren't saying because it's not as sexy (or profitable) as habit tracking apps.

The real pre-requisite for eventually doing the Thing isn't your ability to be consistent. It is your ability to come back to the thing—again and again and to do so without the stories, without the judgement.

Celebrate every return. That will ensure you eventually do the thing.

So begin. Fail. Begin again. And in that rhythm of persistence, watch as the Thing—your Thing—slowly comes to life.

What's Your Thing?

I've shared my framework for finally doing the Thing that both calls and terrifies you. Now I wonder: What's your Thing? Is it creative work, a bold career move, a personal challenge, or something else entirely?

Whichever part of the ASIC framework resonates with you most right now likely points to where you're stuck.

If it's acceptance, perhaps you're struggling with unrealistic expectations.

If it's shifting perspective, maybe fear has you in its grip.

If it's implementation, you might need more compassionate strategies to begin.

And if it's coming back, perhaps self-judgment is blocking your return after setbacks.

Identify your Thing. Locate your stuck point.

Remember: The world needs what only you can bring forth.