Shitty First Drafts is the title of the third chapter in Anne Lamott’s best selling writing guide, bird by bird. Naturally, it comes right before the chapter on perfectionism. I’ve read this book several times over and I love it as a writing guide and also as a guide for life. Because everything we do begins with a shitty first draft. When we don’t attempt something new because we’re afraid it won’t be perfect, we miss out on the growth and expansion we all naturally seek.

How many times have you wished for something else in your life. Something more. Different. Better. Yet you held back from trying because you believed you needed to be smarter, or more experienced, or you were in need of something you didn’t have. News flash! You have everything you need to get started and be successful. You have to be willing to start the shitty first draft.

The shitty first draft chapter is all of 7 pages long yet, for me, it’s the most significant chapter in the book. What I love most is the idea that “very few writers know what they are doing until they’ve done it”. I believe this is true for most people; artist, creatives, healers, inventors, business people, and all the successful people we admire.

What we see in others is a reflection of ourselves.

What you see in the people you admire, the qualities you admire about them, is a reflection of what is within you! The difference is, they’ve taken the first small step and the next and the next no matter how poorly (or shittily – if that’s a word) it might turn out. They started. And, they kept going. I don’t know about you, but getting started is often the most challenging part of any new practice, project, effort, or experience I undertake. Yet once I do, my confidence grows, and even if it turns out shitty there’s always something to be learned.

I believe we can’t get life wrong. Everything is a choice. Everything. We simply make the choices we make that feel best at the time and that lead us to the next choice on our life’s journey. It’s all a wonderful experiment and each one of us is the researcher of our own life.

Are you wanting to write that book? Take the trip? Leave the job? Start a business? Are you choosing your life or are you settling for it? What are you willing to discover about yourself? Are you willing to write the shitty first draft? Imagine the possibilities, then take the first small step.

From my heart to yours,

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Photo by Marco Bianchetti on Unsplash