START. – Jon Acuff
Given to me by my boss, Jerad Hill, the book really inspired me to…start. Intriguing concept I know, but the value of beginning something is great. (Finishing is the most important at heart, but you don’t finish unless you first start.)
The book is written by creator of the blog, “Stuff Christians Like.” A soft-hearted satire to the lifestyle and attitudes that many Christians have in common. “Start.” is written in this same tone that is playful but still challenges the reader to throw out excuses and look for new and challenging beginnings.
So many of us will see how far away the finish line is that we won’t even bother to set-up at the starting line. Looking around at our colleagues and those we aspire to be we’ll begin to feed on our own criticism. We believe that we aren’t built for success like so-and-so, or we’re not smart enough, or we just don’t have the X-factor. Maybe an awkward reference, but Macklemore’s “Ten Thousand Hours” mentions this concept.
“The greats weren’t great because at birth they could paint,
The greats were great cause they paint a lot.”
The ten thousand hours you might spend honing your craft might not be beautiful, front page worthy, or public (at first), but necessary to reach your awesome.
All great things had a starting point, but not all things started will end greatly. This being said, we are blessed enough to learn from every project, venture, and relationship started to learn something from it that we can invest into our next step in life. Don’t let your fear of failure stop you from starting something today, it just could lead you to something even greater than you imagined.