Small Beginnings: The Gifts That are Found Within Our Liminal Spaces and Slow Starts

It started with a question: What’s next for me?  

Our youngest would be graduating high school in May, off to college that August. The past 20 years of career on pause - my choice - to prioritize my work around raising our kids, homeschooling, and soccer schedules. It’s a time I wouldn’t trade or change for the world – I loved having a front seat to the stages of their development and growth. All I ever wanted to be was a mom. But now that long season, with all its ups and downs and familiarities is over – and it leaves me asking, What’s next for me?

I had my bachelor’s in Biblical Counseling – that’s a bit of a dead end, these decades later, because the opportunities that that particular degree opens up for me are not ones I’m currently pursuing – faith has a way of evolving over two decades, I have found. That degree did provide me a valuable touchpoint, however – it shows that although I left high school wanting to become a teacher (and I did, in many forms) – my heart has always been to come alongside others, witness their pain, and help them create something new.

That liminal space holds challenges and unknowns, too – my 80 year old, legally blind mother-in-law was moving in with us in the Spring, to an apartment we converted from our garage space. Our youngest was leaving the nest. Covid hit in mid-March – and everything in our day-to-day, as we had come to expect it, had changed.

So launching my coaching business happened with much trepidation, many unknowns, and an unwavering belief that this was mine to do. At that time, I knew more what I didn’t want to do than what I did. That felt messy, but it turns out, it was enough.

What I did was, focus on the next thing in front of me.

I had conversations with people in the field and in field adjacent; I talked to my therapist, spiritual advisor, mentors, and friends; I researched and read and sought and drilled down. I took the next class or workshop or course module. I earned the certification(s). I developed the website – all by myself! Not a tech person! Not good with computers! But I made bffs with the good people on the customer service line, and I saw that thing through.

I coached clients, at the beginning, for free. I built every piece of my scope, my practice, my method, my approach, my dream. I created documents and social media posts and website copy and blogs. And I’m still building it. Next month I plan to launch my first online course - another milestone that I never saw from the starting line. It was around the bend, and I hadn’t gotten there yet.

Don’t despise small beginnings, friends. Sometimes they’re the very stepping stones down the long and winding path that will take you to the place that your heart has desired all along.

We know the stories: The executive who started in the mail room. The filmmakers who started out making home movies as kids with their siblings and neighborhood friends. The entry-level intern who eventually owns the company.           

Do you know how comedians form their act? They bring their wobbly jokes and awkward stories to their audience. They see what gets the laughs, what works, what hits. But inherently, this means that they endure what doesn’t get the laugh, what doesn’t work and isn’t a hit. From there, they go back to the cutting room floor. They write, they rewrite, they try out new phrasing, they hone. And they try it again.

This is the dance.

What about you? What drives you? What lights you up? Where does your passion lie? What has been enduring in your life, no matter what season you’ve been in? What’s your next best step? What’s one thing you can do to move you one inch closer to the dream?

If you falter, it’s ok! If you take a class you don’t end up needing, or take an extra semester (or three years) to finish up your degree, or if you launch your website and get crickets, count it as good. It all belongs. There’s a gift in there somewhere, even in the worst circumstances, if you calm down and take a breath and look for it. We don’t expect perfection out of the gate. We are kinder to ourselves than that. We don’t expect babies learning to walk to get up and sprint. We expect a few falls. It’s ok; they’re brand new. You’re brand new. So be new.  

Sometimes we do it scared, with trembling and uncertainties and a few tears. That’s ok too. Those things show how much you care. So do it scared, with a tear in your eye and with a tremble in your hand.

The acorn looks up at mighty oak – and it knows it’s meant for greatness. But it gets there as we all do, one baby step, one season at a time.

What will you create with the whole world out in front of you? I’d be honored to hear about it.

Go, you!

Baby steps. It all belongs.