New year, new you
It’s not only a new year but a new decade. Maybe you have some dirty laundry to shed, or a new goal you set for yourself. Either way, this new year and decade are an opportunity to better yourself.
After all, there is always:
Room for improvement
There are many goals I have for this year and decade. I don’t want to get ahead of myself and start thinking about the decade, although I do have major plans such as buying a house and growing my business exponentially. As for now, I want to focus on this year, and this year only. By focusing all of my energy and efforts on this very moment, I allow myself to be more present not only for myself but for those around me. Therefore, what are my goals for this year?
Well, they started with the launch of this website. It has been a goal of mine for quite some time. When I first thought of Align, it was in early 2019. Now, a year later and many, many long days and nights later, here we are. I say we because you all are the lifeline of this blog.
I write because each and every one of you inspire me. I write because I want to share with you my own experiences and connect on a deeper level. I write because of you, and your story matters. I write because it helps me and there is always room to improve. But most of all, I write for us to better ourselves and to create an environment where we achieve it. However, I know the battle for me to get to this point began long, long ago.
Perfection
Don’t wait. If I had one piece of advice to give to myself a few years ago, it would definitely be not to wait. My first website, BasketballBenevolence, launched in 2017. It took me nearly two years to make the website and feel comfortable enough to launch it to the world. Yet, I wish I would have launched it sooner because there is no perfect date.
Do you know why? Because the kinks will work themselves out. By nature, I am a perfectionist. So what did I do? I tried to make every single aspect of the website perfect before I launched the website, from the color scheme to the e-mail subscriber icon.
This perfectionism has helped me at many points in my life, but this wasn’t one of them. I’d created excitement around my blog for months, and it got to the point where people were asking me when I was actually going to release it because I kept pushing the date further and further back. The anticipation I built was going in vain due to my own qualities.
For Align, I wouldn’t allow the same to happen. Rather than waiting two years to launch this website, it began as an idea in the early part of 2019, and now, less than a year later, here it is in all of its entirety. It’s not perfect, and there are still some things I want to change, but here it is. What’s the point?
Timing
If you wait for perfect timing or any other factor in your success, you’ll always be waiting. Ultimately, there is no perfect timing.
The perfect timing is now
Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way. By waiting around trying to make my website the best it could be before launch, I was losing the significant anticipation I had spent so many months building up. I did not let things flow naturally and instead stumbled into a launch and didn’t have as many visitors as I would have liked, given my waiting around. I got in my way. I firmly believe in the saying:
“The only person who can stop you is you.”
If I had just gotten out of my own way, the website would’ve had a more successful start, I just know it. Sure, I still worked hard and tried to salvage whatever part of the initial audience I could, but I made it harder on myself. Harder than it ever needed to be. I had to do one thing to get out my way, and that was let go.
Let go of perfection. Let go of this idea of perfect timing I’d placed into my head. Because at the end of the day, what’s meant to be will be and what’s not, won’t. So I challenge you this new year to embrace whatever obstacles are in front of you and to face them head-on. Don’t be the reason your goals aren’t reached. Do everything you can to reach them, even if it means getting out of your own way.
