An important reminder about beginnings is, that it is a beginning. It isn’t the end.

There are several ways to confuse both.

Expectations contribute to the confusion, for example, by being assumptions about one’s own or other people’s ability to know how a project will unfold, how well everyone will be doing, or how clear one’s perceptions of what is desirable is.

Setting out with a plan or resolutions easily fails if deviations from the plan can’t be imagined or implemented while sticking to the objective.

Being attached to the result. That is being so focused on the result that anything that differs from the desired outcome becomes a failure or a disappointment. It is as if reaching the result is the only way to achieve satisfaction or as if the result automatically brings happiness.

Whatever happens in the moment is perceived as a burden and happiness, satisfaction, or even learning is delayed to the future.

Being focused on a constant learning process. That is viewing everything through the lens of potential and perfection. Instead of stepping into action and letting the learning happen, the learning comes under constant evaluation. The process is under constant scrutiny or being hastened.

Nothing is ever good enough, there is always something that could have been better. The learning that happens is not perceived nor appreciated.

A beginning is a step into the unknown. It constantly occurs but it can also be designed. However, the design is there to allow something to happen that one cannot predict. At the same time, it is there to give oneself as much of a solvable problem as possible. The bigger the unknown, the more time is needed to learn what a solvable problem looks like for oneself.

In this process, luck is as much a teacher as failures are. Neither of both can solely be attributed to competence.