You’ll be surprised by the many talents hidden within you, if only you gave yourself the permission to be a beginner.

Some of us have spent years in a cycle of preparation. Reading every book. Signing up for every course. Watching, planning, journaling, color-coding. And while that might look like process, it often isn’t. It’s fear dressed up as strategy. It’s the safety of sitting on the shore, analyzing the current, instead of stepping into the water and trusting that you’ll figure out how to float.

I say this with love, because I’ve been there. Because I am there, more often than I’d like to admit. The truth is, while I was preparing, someone else, maybe someone who’s even statistically less intelligent than me, was starting. Starting badly, maybe. Starting without a map, maybe. But starting nonetheless. And while I stayed safe in the realm of “getting ready,” they moved forward. They began collecting information not just from books but from real-time experience. They learned to swim by swimming. Not by studying water dynamics.

Mastery is just accumulated courage. The expert isn’t necessarily the most talented. Often, they’re simply the one who stayed in the arena the longest, through the awkward beginnings and the clumsy middles. They gave themselves permission to begin badly, and kept returning with courage. What if we redefined mastery not as the accumulation of skills, but the ability to stay present in discomfort long enough for wisdom to catch up?

Perfectionism is a form of spiritual procrastination. How often has “I’m not ready yet” actually meant “I’m scared to be seen in my becoming”? When we obsess over readiness, we’re often avoiding the initiation we already signed up for. “Not yet” is the ego’s favorite disguise. It keeps us safe. But it also keeps us small. So here’s the good news: if you’re reading this, and you’re on the edge of starting something, congrats. I’m proud of you. The hardest part is almost over. You’re right at the border between thought and action. And stepping over that line, imperfectly and maybe even awkwardly, is more powerful than perfecting your plan for eternity.

Fear of failure is often fear of identity death. It’s not always about the task at hand, it’s about who we think we are. Starting something new can shake the foundation of our identity. If you’ve always been “the smart one,” “the capable one,” or “the gifted one,” then being a beginner feels like betrayal. But it’s not. It’s expansion. And expansion requires us to let the old version of ourselves fall apart, so something truer can emerge.

But there’s another side to this too. Some of us never got called the smart one. Or the gifted one. Or the capable one. Some of us sat in classrooms feeling like the dumbest person in the room when in fact, we were carrying the weight of entire emotional universes in our chests. For children who grow up in environments that don’t feel safe or nurturing, school becomes a performance on top of survival. Their minds are often too occupied with decoding the emotional landscape at home to fully comprehend what’s happening in school. It’s not that we weren’t capable. It’s that our brilliance was busy surviving. And when you’ve grown up like that, the idea of “starting something new” feels like you’re being tested all over again: but this time, without a backup plan. That’s why being a beginner can feel so loaded. It’s not just a task. It’s a wound, too. And do you know how you’ll heal? By facing your fear and starting.

You already came encoded with the map. If you believe in any kind of soul-contract or pre-birth intention, then it’s not about figuring out your path. It’s about remembering it. But remembrance isn’t theoretical. It’s somatic. You remember by walking. You access the plan by living.

I’ve experienced this so many times. Take my Instagram account, @HouseofBlackbird. I was stuck in this spiral of overthinking and strategy, I thought I had to build a content plan, an aesthetic, a 30-day launch goal. But in truth, I just wanted to express. To create without needing it to be perfect. When I finally gave myself permission to just start, something shifted. I wasn’t aiming for virality, but a few of my videos ended up going viral anyway. One over 100,000 views. And I realized: when I stopped trying to be strategic and just let creativity lead, I gave myself space to embody a version of me that didn’t need immediate results to feel worthy. It became a safe space to express, not to perform.

And this wasn’t the first time. I started a new business when I was barely out of my teens, pivoting constantly, learning as I went. I read The Lean Startup and treated it like my bible. I was 18 or 19. I wasn’t “ready.” But the mission was bigger than my fear. I started because I had to, because I couldn’t not start.

And then there are moments when we don’t get to prepare at all. When my mom got sick, nothing could’ve prepared me for becoming her caregiver. I wasn’t trained. I didn’t even feel equipped to handle my own life, let alone someone else’s. But I adapted. I learned. I implemented what I could, moment by moment. Life has a strange way of forcing you into the water before you’ve had time to even roll up your sleeves. And sometimes, that’s the only way.

The intellect wants to prepare. The soul wants to experience. I’ve learned the hard way that strategy will only take you so far. There comes a moment where logic bows to life, where no spreadsheet can hold what the body knows. Your inner artist, the messy, impulsive, tender one, needs to be let out of the box.

We’re comparing our prelude to someone else’s climax. Social media is a hall of mirrors. And while we scroll, we forget that everyone’s highlight reel is someone’s messy middle that’s been cleaned up with filters and edits. No one posts their raw, cracked beginnings in full. But beginnings are where the soul comes alive. Every becoming has an ugly middle. This part needs to be said louder. There is no glow-up without goo. You don’t go from seed to bloom without bursting open. If you avoid the mess, you miss the metamorphosis.

‘Doing the work’ isn’t always work. Sometimes it’s hiding. There’s a subtle danger in becoming addicted to self-help. We can hide behind healing. Behind ritual. Behind productivity. But transformation doesn’t happen in the preparation room. It happens out there. In the street. In the launch. In the risk. I’ve hidden in the rituals before. I’ve polished the altar instead of praying at it. I know what it’s like to tell myself I’m “doing the work” when I’m really just dodging the next step.

The body is often ready before the mind. I’ve felt it, a tug in the chest, a buzz in the palms. My body whispers, “We’re ready.” But my mind says, “Wait.” And learning to trust the body over the brain? That’s a lifelong practice. But a powerful one.

Starting is a spell. Every time you begin, you cast a vote for the self that’s waiting on the other side. You are not just checking off a task. You are doing soulwork. You are sending a signal to the universe: I trust myself enough to try.

There are things I’m good at now that once began painfully. My art, for example. I was always creative as a kid. But when I spent years in corporate, I lost touch with my creative soul. Coming back to painting was clumsy, slow, and strangely emotional. My wrists had to relearn how to hold a brush. My hands physically hurt. I once wrote poetry until my hands bled, literally hahaha. But the ache wasn’t just physical. It was grief. Grief for the part of me I had silenced. And yet, I kept going. Drama aside:

Same with my sense of style. I used to be terrible at dressing myself. Terrible at putting together breakfasts that actually tasted good and felt good in my body. But even micro-moments like those have become rituals of self-expression now. Evidence that small beginnings, awkward beginnings, are sacred.

This isn’t a call to recklessness. It’s a call to trust your inner timing, and then act when the bell rings. To begin badly, and bravely. To stop waiting for readiness, and start learning in real time. That’s where the hidden talents live. In motion. In action. In presence.

Because you are more capable than you think. And the only way to prove that to yourself, is to begin. A few months ago I wrote a longer essay about the urge to pivot. It might spark something within you, especially if you feel triggered after reading this blog post.

I’m proud of you. All the versions of you.

Love,
Meer