It’s all her fault.
For she was the one who casually mentioned that now’s the time to plant tulips. Now, before the ground freezes. If she hadn’t said anything, I never would have been crazy enough to go to Home Depot, buy 60 tulip bulbs and a trowel, and try to plant all those blubs in my front and back yard.
See, I’m not a gardener. Not by any distortion of the term. I’ve never enjoyed digging in the dirt and my thumbs are anything but green. I mean, I have trouble keeping low maintenance houseplants alive.
But, oh! I love tulips. And the thought of multicolored tulips popping up all around my house in spring… it was irresistible!
So, on a cold but sunny Sunday, with my brand new trowel and several bags of tulip bulbs, I stepped out into my yard and way out of my comfort zone to plant tulip bulbs.
By the time I’d dug the third or fourth hole, I was ready to call it quits.
My left wrist was aching from my attempts to twist the trowel into the hard ground. I couldn’t find a comfortable way to sit, squat or position my body. “This is nuts!” I thought, as visions of my couch, a bowl of popcorn and that movie featuring Johnny Depp kept flooding my mind.
I told myself, “I’m only going to plant one or two more and then I’m done.”
I’d plant another bulb, certain it was my last. But then I’d think, “Okay, just one more. I can plant one more.” And once that bulb was in the ground, I’d think, “Oh, just one more. Then it’s me and Johnny Depp for the rest of the afternoon.”
Bulb by bulb, I kept planting.
Then, something shifted. I fell into a groove. I created my own hole-digging, tulip-planting system. My wrist stopped hurting and my body stopped complaining.
I planted approximately 40 bulbs with ease and in very little time. And when I was finished, I felt so good. Come spring, I would have the most colorful display of gorgeous tulips all around my house.
Sometimes, getting started is the hardest part. Especially when you’re starting something that’s out of your comfort zone.
Like… when you’re writing copy, for example.
Staring at a blank page is a lot like staring at a cold, hard piece of ground. Those first words, like those first holes I dug, can feel hard, impossible, even painful.
You write one or two sentences and think, “Forget it! This isn’t working. I can’t do this.” You crumple up your piece of paper or hit your delete key and feel an overwhelming desire to do anything else. Like upload those photos of your cat onto your Facebook page.
But you know you’ve got to write this piece of copy. You can’t keep putting it off. The success of your business depends on it.
So, you start.
You plant one sentence onto the page, and then another. You feel the resistance rising up inside of you. You hear the voice saying, “This sucks!” and tell yourself, “Just one more sentence. Just one more.”
And then, something shifts. Almost without noticing it, you’re writing paragraph after paragraph. New ideas are popping into your head and onto the page. You’re in the groove now. What at first felt impossible is now as easy as humming a song.
The moral of the story is, just start.
Feel the resistance and say, “Hello, Resistance!” and then, simply plant one sentence on your page. Then another. Let yourself hate it. Let your wrist hurt. Complain, if you must. But then plant one more sentence. Then another.
Faster than you expected, that initial resistance you felt will disappear. You’ll be in the flow, discovering a creative cadence all your own. And in no time, you’ll have pages and pages full of yummy words… the stuff that brilliant messages are made of.