15. The Courage to Begin
The hardest part is not the middle. It is the start.
Not because the start is the most difficult technically. But because the start is where everything is still uncertain. The result is unknown. The response is unknown. Whether you have what it takes is still an open question.
And in that uncertainty, most things that want to exist never get started.
Not for lack of talent. Not for lack of time. For lack of the one thing that has to come before anything else: the courage to begin.
The Creative Thing You Have Not Started Yet
Most people carry something they have not started. A creative project that lives in the back of their mind. A skill they have always wanted to develop. A story they have always meant to write. A song they hear in their head but have never tried to get onto paper or into an instrument.
The reasons are familiar. Not enough time. Not enough skill yet. Waiting until the right moment. Waiting until they feel ready.
But the honest reason, if you peel back the practical excuses, is almost always the same: fear.
Fear that it will not be good enough. Fear of what other people will think. Fear of discovering that the thing you always imagined doing is harder than you imagined. Fear of starting and failing, and having to face the gap between what you hoped to create and what exists.
These fears are real. They are also universal. Every person who has ever made something real has felt them.
The difference between the person who creates and the person who does is not the absence of fear. It is the decision to begin, anyway.
What the First Chord Taught Me
I remember the first time I sat down with a guitar and tried to write a song rather than learn someone else's.
I had been playing for a few years by then. I could get around the fretboard. I knew some chords. But sitting down to write something that was mine felt completely different. There was nothing to follow. No right answer. No way to check if I was doing it correctly.
What came out that first time was rough. Awkward. A bit embarrassing, honestly. The chord changes did not flow naturally. The words were clunky. The melody wandered.
But it was mine. And something in that, the fact that it existed and had not existed before I made it, felt more important than the quality of the thing itself.
Over forty years of songwriting, I have written hundreds of songs. Some of them I am proud of. Some of them should never be heard by another human being. But every one of them came from the same place: the willingness to sit down and begin, even when I did not know what was coming.
The first chord is always the hardest. Every musician knows this. And every person who has ever tried to make something real knows it too.
Why Beginning Is an Act of Courage
We talk about creativity as if it were primarily a skill. And skill matters as it develops through practice, time, and attention.
But before skill, there is something more fundamental. Willingness.
The willingness to make something imperfect. To share something unfinished. To put something into the world that reflects who you are, knowing that people might not respond the way you hoped.
That willingness requires courage. Not the dramatic kind. The everyday kind. The kind that says: I am going to sit down and begin, even though I do not know how this ends.
Beginning is an act of faith in yourself. It says: I believe that the thing I am reaching for is worth the risk of the uncertain outcome. And I am willing to find out by doing, rather than by continuing to imagine.
That is a braver stance than most people give themselves credit for. And it becomes more natural the more times you practice it.
A Daily Practice
The Five-Minute Start.
Whatever creative thing it is that you have been postponing, the writing, the music, the painting, the course, the project, the conversation, give it five minutes today.
Not to finish it. Not to get it right. Just to begin.
Set a timer. Sit down. Open the document, pick up the instrument, or pick up the pen. And let whatever comes out, come out without judgment for five minutes.
You are not trying to produce anything worth keeping. You are practising the act of beginning. Because beginning is the skill that makes everything else possible.
Five minutes. That is the whole practice. Do it today and do it again tomorrow. The quality will develop with time. But the courage to begin? That only develops by beginning.
What Begins Can Become
The songs I am most proud of started as something barely recognisable. The clumsy first verse, the chord change that was not quite right, the image that was still blurry.
They became what they are through return. Coming back to them. Sitting with them. Letting them grow across days, weeks, and sometimes months into something that said what I was trying to say.
But none of that is possible without the first five minutes. The start that had nothing to commend it except the willingness to exist.
Whatever creative thing has been living in you, waiting for the right moment, the right moment is not coming. The moment is now. Imperfect, uncertain, and slightly scary.
Begin anyway. That is all it takes.
Everything else follows.
Reflection
What is the creative thing you have been waiting to begin?
What would it mean to give it five minutes today, not to finish it, just to start?
The Research
Research by developmental psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi at the University of Chicago identified what he called the state of flow, a condition of deep engagement in a challenging task where effort and ability are closely matched, self-consciousness temporarily disappears, and time seems to alter. Crucially, Csikszentmihalyi's research found that flow states are not available from a standing start. They emerge through engagement with the task. The person who sits down to begin, even without inspiration, even without confidence, creates the conditions in which flow becomes possible. The person who waits for inspiration before beginning rarely creates those conditions at all. Starting is not just the practical first step. It is the neurological trigger for the deeper engagement that makes creative work feel natural rather than forced.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Row.
Further Reading
Learn to Play the Acoustic Guitar: Amazon Bestseller. If music has been calling you, this is where you begin. Step by step, no experience needed, the first chord is closer than you think. Available at brotherbluebooks.com
The Inner Warrior Book
The Inner Warrior: A Framework for Returning to Yourself is the book that brings the full framework to life. Guard your energy. Build your foundation. Learn to flow. Act with purpose. Four phases, four pillars, and the one thread that runs through all of it: awareness and return. Available now at brotherbluebooks.com
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