STARTING IS WEIRD
More than anything you, the starter, don’t know how its going to turn out. Your intentions are clear and so perhaps is your mission and vision and purpose and all the basics, but there is so much questioning and uncertainty. I think you’re in good company with uncertainty and questions.
I picked up this blog as a charge I received in a forum where I was told that even if I did not make it into the prestigious leadership programs of our time in my country and continent, I should do something. So I did, I started what I hope will become a movement of people taking the lead somewhere, owning and dignifying the process of becoming a leader. I wrote my first ever post on Medium and for the rest of the week watched my stats. I’m here to record what that week was like for a starter.
Where am I and what have I done?
There is a difference between starting where others have been and starting where others have not been. Not that your venture is absolutely new on the face of the earth, but that your current pursuit has never existed before, like this blog did not exist before Monday last week when I started to set up. I have, in my life had the opportunity to start in both settings, where there was nothing and where I ma taking over something that has long outlived me. To be fair, they are not exactly the same.
I spent the week, anyone who has started a new venture probably spends it the same way, it feels like the earth beneath your feet is shifting. A lens, an incredibly powerful one for the self-criticism it produces, sets itself squarely upon you. You cannot remember in certain moments what you expected that first week to be like. At the back of your mind is wondering, where in the sphere you have just entered, do you now occupy. You read obsessively looking for tips for your new venture, I know I searched YouTube and blogs for blogging tips and for how-to videos and articles. You struggle with freely sharing that link to your content, website, newly developed app with more than a certain self-determined quota of people, and if/when you do, you’re thrust into an even larger whirlwind: Will they read it, or at least look at it? What will they think? Will I get feedback? Was it good? Sometimes you even struggle with tags, am I blogger, business person, entrepreneur, writer, creative? Will I actually begin to identify as such, do I add the link to all my socials, do I create independent social accounts for my venture? What is happening?
So there goes the mind of a person starting something, a first timer…isn't it glorious?
It’s absolutely okay to…
Care about it all or to not care or to care just a little bit. Honestly its your venture, your baby, if you will. For some people it’s not all-consuming, the kind that takes over your mind and on some days cripples. I have found that with this particular start, I was not consumed by the starter world. So as the week went on, I though through and came up with a Starter starter-pack.
It’s what I would like to call a thinking tool for processing the beginning. The beginning is also a very subjective experience. You could be starting for a week, weeks or even months. It is also absolutely helpful for the future with a friend or a someone you’re mentoring or a successor who is starting, that you could offer them and that you can completely adjust based on your own gained wisdom with Starting.
The Leader Process Starter starter-pack.
1. Celebrate the start.
Simply, give yourself in your own unique way a moment to celebrate the beginning. It could be a treat, a small dinner party with friends, an update to your vision board, changing your bio on your social media feeds, journalling this moment somewhere special.
Why? Because you have already achieved something. And from other experiences a culture of celebration is one you want to have with you because more often than not, no matter how big we think we are or up-to task with our challenge, the thing we are starting finds a way to wipe out our successes by overwhelming us. So does popular culture which, of no fault of its own, fails to recognize small beginnings and small steps. Seems to glamorize the fast money and quick rise to the top. Let’s be honest, when you’re starting no matter what you think your process is going to look like, you never know when the big break will happen.
So do not wait, celebrate. Immortalize the beginning. Then celebrate every time to you take the next step. You could build a celebration ritual or a reward system. Give yourself positive feedback as heavily as you give and get negative feedback. Balance those out because your entire experience as it comes is built around perspective.
2. Necessity and steps
The obsessive YouTube and article consumption that happens is unhealthy. Don’t get me wrong, tips are great and success stories just the same. It’s very easy to get overwhelmed and jump gears trying to get all the tips and tricks done so they can start to yield the magic. But if we are being honest, the ones we are looking up to have those tips and tricks because they have gone before you. Imagine that if they never did, those would not be out there for you. Now imagine, that if you don’t go through your own process, the one who comes after won’t get the creative, new and improved solutions, tips and tricks if you will, that you are yet to discover.
Honestly allow necessity to lead your steps. As you consider necessity you will also find yourself considering really critical questions on capacity. For example, if you start four new social media handles for your venture, do you have the content, time and money to do it all at once. Sometimes the answer to that question is yes, and if it is by all means get on with it. But in case it’s not, you do not have to do it.
It is not magic that produces leaders. It’s a wonderful combination of time and chance and work. In a strange and yet productive combination with just the right amounts of those. Guess how you figure out the right amounts? Process. Allow necessity, and all the considerations that come with it lead you to a sizable next step, one that you will have the chance to learn from so that in the future as a point of reference, you have something worth your seeker’s time to say. Dignify you and their inquiry by learning.
3. Learning
Because you are a starter, there is so much learning to do. True. But there could also be an unhealthy obsession with reading content to know things. But knowing is not always learning, especially in leadership.
Because of how much is out there for you to understand, make use of and observe results from, sometimes you will get caught up. Especially in this time of digital learning spaces and communities, podcasts, YouTube and just the general Internet, not to mention books and physical learning spaces, you can learn all you want. Now there is no prescription as to what to read or listen to or take a course in. The only thing is giving yourself the time, space and facility to apply what you are learning and to learn from it. Observe and make take aways. Innovate the knowledge to see new possibilities for your venture. Arm yourself with deep understanding so you can do more with what you know.
As I look ahead in my own journey with The Leader Process, I see many possibilities and all the knowledge gaps that come with that level of vision. I don’t know what not to learn. So I am taking the time to plot a need-based learning plan which will include books, podcasts and even courses. I hope to develop a learning curve and a journal of the lessons. I hope to experiment with previously acquired knowledge to do new things to advance and yet I cannot possibly manage all of that at the moment. Because I have a life to live that is beyond my new venture simply put, I am where I ma right this moment.
4. Presence
Often when you read about the present, you could get a happy thoughts sense of things. Any one who has started knows that it does not leave you much room for those, when your mind is processing all the stuff: risks, possible failure, finances, time constraints and even success.
Being present, I have seen does not always mean positivity. It has meant a true and current appraisal of the state of affairs in my world. A clear-eyed view of what is and is not happening. A truly human response to the short comings and a genuine call for help in the face of need. Presence has also meant stepping away from the venture so that we regain our ability to be present.
There is a lot to take in when you are a starter.Take it in the way you know how. In the moments when you notice you are not taking it in, whatever it is, you’re not present. If you stick with it long enough you’ll figure out the rhythm that allows you to remain present and the rituals that help reset you. You develop a healthy respect for the very real risks and hazards of starting anything. That is significantly different from avoidance or filling with yourself with positivity and happy thoughts. I have found that when presence breaks through, I see the risks however small and the opportunities that exist there in to get out alive and better. I deal with fear in a healthy and consistently fruitful way.
Give your venture, business, readers and followers the very precious gift of a solution and experience that is truly yours. One that bears your mark of essence. Your mark of essence will grow and change with you because you are the leader and you remain in a process state. I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Process is everyone’s best bet in leadership, the leader and the led.
The Leader Process.
Originally published at theleaderprocess.wordpress.com on September 8, 2018.
