The Need to Know You Can Do It

I’ve attempted to grow a beard many times in the past. I’m giving it another shot right now.

After visiting my barber with about five days’ worth of growth, he assured me that I could pull it off and gave me some basic shaping guidelines. I told him I’d tried to grow more before but I’ve always given up. These are the many reasons I’d given up before:

1. I thought it would look too patchy.
2. I thought it would look too different from my hair color.
3. My wife would hate it.
4. I’d have to get new photos taken for work.
5. It’s not as easy to maintain as a clean-shaven face.

He assured me it could work, but I’d have to be patient. He addressed every one of my issues above so that they were moot. He told me my beard wouldn’t be patchy. He said it wouldn’t look too different from my hair colour except for the white whiskers that were more apparent on my chin. He said that once it grew out my wife might not hate it that much. He said that if it had been a year or so since my last photos, then maybe it was time for new ones anyway.

Then came the maintenance concern.

The way he framed the maintenance made me want to take my time with it. There was a craft element he spoke of when it came to shaping a beard which appealed to me. He even began shaping it as it was so that I’d have a bit of a head start when I really needed to get going with the shaping process.

So while I’m not sure what a beard will look like on me, I’m willing to take the time to find out. I need to know that I can grow one, and that’s why I’m sticking to it this time around.

Sometimes there are things you do because of one reason above all others: the need to know you can do it.

For me, growing this beard is one of them. Running a 10K race was another, and I did that back in 2017. Writing a book was another, and while I’ve done that a couple of times before it’s still something that I need to know I can do even today.

What’s something that you’re doing because you need to know you can do it? Better still, try doing something for that reason alone that you’ve been procrastinating on. The need to know you can do it can be reason enough to do it.

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Mike Vardy is a writer, productivity strategist, and the creator of TimeCrafting. He is the author of the upcoming book TimeCrafting: A Better Way to Get The Right Things Done. Mike is also renowned speaker and has taught productivity on CreativeLive, Skillshare, and LinkedIn Learning where his courses are among the most popular in the business category.