Start Before You're Ready
I have carried a camera with me everywhere from disposables, to film, to polaroids, and now a DSLR. Along the way annoying each family member with requests to pull over so I could take a photo, asking them to take photos of me, or abruptly pointing the camera in their direction without notice.
After years of procrastination, self-doubt, and fear I've finally decided to pursue my love for photography. Previously, I shut down the idea abruptly or ignored the consistent calling in my heart. Why? I've never gone to photography school, I don't have the best equipment, I wasn't good enough. I had this idea that I needed to be educated, hired, or perfect before I could even start. Isn't that disheartening?
Fear reared its head in my life in many forms: perfectionism, procrastination, or over-preparedness. While reading Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert, (as part of our Lionheart Collective Book Club: Lionheart Literature, shameless plug), it occurred to me that I'm worthy of a creative life. If I don't call it what it is and believe in myself, why would anyone else?
My crutch has always been waiting until it was perfect. Holding everything close to my heart until every “t” was crossed and every “i” dotted, then finding something else I wanted to improve and repeating the perpetual cycle of never releasing anything, because, it just wasn't perfect, yet. Sound familiar? We are all being pressed with two choices, evolve or repeat.
“I think perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat, pretending to be elegant when actually it’s just terrifying. Because underneath that shiny veneer, perfectionism is nothing more that a deep existential angst the says, again and again, ‘I am not good enough and I will never be good enough.”
— ELIZABETH GILBERT
The thing about our calling is that it rarely relies on us leaping into a space of comfortable, more likely it's a risk of the unknown. Ah, but where do we start? To some it might be a leap, in reality, it's a hundred of little baby steps. Challenging ourselves daily to take one of those baby steps. Maybe it's writing it down, a journal entry, telling someone, or booking your first client. Start before you're ready, you don't need to know where it's all going. That's the beautiful thing about this messy life we are in, it isn't linear, you, me, we, will work it out along the way. We got this.
If you've got a passion or a goal, don't wait for permission. Easier said than done right? But wouldn't it be a disservice to your gifts? Your talents? Your light and energy if you didn't share yourself wholeheartedly with the world? Let's tune in and respond to our intuition.
Here I am, taking the risk and giving myself the permission to be free to create regardless of being "good at it", regardless of having the best equipment, or if I've taken all the classes. Now that I don't have to be good, I can be free. Inspired to step wholeheartedly into my creative life and lean into my fear and trust in the universe.
Now it's your turn. What are you being called to do that you don't feel ready for?
with gratitude,
mecoh
Mecoh Bain
documentary + lifestyle photographer
hello@mecohbain.com
403-875-5245
