The late Zig Ziglar used to say that “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” When I first heard this quote, I thought to myself man, that’s a good one.  But I didn’t give it much thought from there. Now, all these years later I realize what he meant. 

You don’t have to be the best at whatever it is that you are doing, but if you want to be good at it whatsoever, you must start somewhere. 

I’ve ridden real bulls in a rodeo, drove semi-trucks for a living, stunted motorcycles, rode horses, was an amateur and professional Muay Thai fighter, started a YouTube channel, started a motorcycle business and failed. These were all things that I knew nothing about before starting. I made a lot of mistakes along the way in learning to get good at each of them. 

I have three quick tips that have helped me with each of these adventures of my life. Was I scared? A little. But I always knew I was going to learn something from it so I was eager to learn no matter the challenge. 

Tip # 1 Research everything you can about what you want to do. Study it, learn about it, see what successful people in the subject are doing to succeed and see where others failed. This will help give you a guide to beginning and an outline to follow. 

Tip # 2 Set a start date and time and stick to it! If you are one of those “someday” people, someday will never come. Someday when my job slows down, when the kids are older, when I have more time… The reality is someday will never come, so if you want to start, start now! Pick a day and time to research, then pick a day immediately after that to start. 

Tip # 3 Don’t be afraid to fail, learn from it! You will get better because you will make mistakes as you go, and naturally course correct. It’s okay, it’s part of the learning process. You will get better.

 

This is the guideline I follow when starting anything new. It’s okay to fail, it’s okay to make a lot of mistakes! Just fix them and keep moving forward. 

I hope that this gives you some inspiration, start something new, and eventually be great at it. 

 

As always, train hard, be a beast!