There's a special kind of irony in watching smart people wait for the perfect moment to start. We optimize our lives down to the minute. Automating bills, planning schedules, finding the fastest route to work. Yet we hesitate at the edge of beginning something new.

Most of my conversations with teams come down to one piece of advice: begin. Just start. It sounds obvious, almost simplistic. But when stakes feel high and fear of imperfection runs deep, just starting becomes revolutionary.

We call it perfectionism and wear it like a badge of honor. "I want it to be right," we say. But perfectionism isn't about creating something perfect. It's about protecting a fragile ego from wounds. I know because I'm a recovering perfectionist.

The breakthrough comes when we treat our first attempts as sketches. They're not precious. They're a starting point. What you create now won’t be the final version, and there never really is a final version. Beginning is an act of presence, repeated again and again. While many wait to master every tool, read every book or blog post, or find the perfect moment, real progress comes from building, learning, and iterating.

I see this play out with software teams all the time. They'll spend quality time in architectural debates, researching the perfect tech stack, planning for edge cases they'll never encounter. But the teams that consistently deliver? They start with a clear problem to solve, then write that first line of code before they feel ready. They ship that minimum feature before it feels complete. They learn more from weeks of real usage than months of perfect planning.

Begin without all the answers. Begin with purpose, but start before you even feel ready. Begin knowing that what you create will change, evolve, and probably get thrown away. Every iteration, every mistake, every awkward first attempt teaches you something you couldn't learn from preparation alone.

Just begin.