beginning – Journey With Josephine

playing cello im y dreams — *Photo by* Janderson Tulio on Unsplash

Did it ever happen to you? I’m sure it did. Dreams come to reality if you insist on calling them.

I exactly remember that date. The movie by Amir Khan, Secret Superstar was released. It was October, 2017.

I like to see movies especially in autumn and winter. That time of the year is perfect for indoor activities. Mostly, charming movies are released and I usually gift myself with them after work.

That evening was even more special

Because the movie was a musical drama. It combined the top two things I loved: Music and drama.

The cinema was in a shopping mall. As usual I had my coffee in one of the coffee shops and walked to the cinema. The movie was full of music. It told about a little girl who wanted to play her guitar and sing songs freely. Unfortunately, she had many obstacles. She had to struggle with his father. But at last, her dreams came to reality. Her passion overcame all the problems.

I was so impressed and excited. I like the way Amir Khan tells stories. They come from heart. Both the story and the music in the movie filled my heart with passion. In the end, I asked myself: So when do you think you can give a start?

The cinema was on the third floor of the mall. I walked down the stairs to the second floor and stayed shocked there when I noticed a music shop that I did not see before. It must be new, I thought. I stared at all the instruments with a sigh. And I noticed that beautiful violoncello in the middle of the shop.

The first time I came very close to a violoncello

I followed my foot steps into the shop. Those were in fact my heart steps. Soon after, I was by the cello asking questions about it. I said I wanted to learn how to play it. The shopman was kind and helpful. He allowed me to take a photo of the instrument and told me to visit the shop three days later. A cello teacher was going to visit the shop to organize music lessons and I would ask my questions to her.

Until my next visit, I thought about my cello journey which in fact began one and a half years before that movie day. It just began by coincidence: I remember talking to my friends about the days I played baritone and trombone in the school band. Then years passed, I did not have a career in music, I became an engineer, got married, had children and waited for years to get ready to play an instrument again. In my forties, I found myself trying to decide which instrument to play. I always liked bass sounds. Bands were special for me but I also liked orchestras. And violoncellos were the most impressive instruments for me. Their sound and look was charming. So I was sure that it would be a cello when one of my friends adviced me to talk to his son’s cello teacher.

I did. But I couldn’t proceed. Because cello was an expensive instrument. So were the cello lessons. I had to wait for a while till I organized my budget and felt ready to start. That while lasted for one and a half years.

Go on working on your dreams even if you’re in waiting state

But I did not just wait during that period of time. I bought a novel telling about a cellist. I remember seeing it in the bookstore and buying it immediately. Then I bought a black dress to wear in my first concert 🙂 But more than these, it was my husband who always kept the topic hot: Whenever I said “hello”, he literally replied with the word “cello”. He said that if I didn’t give a start, it would constantly remain as a dream. Dreams come to reality if you insist on them. So I had to adjust my budget and start.

Coming back to that movie evening, yes, I had a cello journey of one and a half years with a noveI, a black dress, lots of passion, but without an instrument. I thought that wouldn’t be a coincidence: I saw the movie, I realized my dreams, walked dowstairs and the music shop welcomed me with shining instruments. I understood that the right time came at last. That was a sign to start. You shouldn’t be late when signs appear. You feel in your heart that it’s the right time. And you feel that you’ll find a way if you just start.

I will tell about the cello lessons and my beautiful teacher in the coming posts. She is my hero. Watch for why.

The power of beginning — Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash

We all have stories about how things began. Beginning is half of the way to completion.

If you want to achieve a specific thing, just begin it. Beginning is the most important part of the progress to achievement.

I will tell you about my stories. But I’m pretty sure that my stories are very similiar to yours. Having read lots of articles on personal growth, I’m now able to understand that we all have common failure and success points.

Waiting for the ideal time to come or ideal circumstances to occur, you just lose time and motivation. Perfectionism does nothing better. Rather, it delays the “good” to happen.

As a child of a soldier, I was grown up with the ideal of perfectionism. I spent years to make things get perfect before I put them on the stage. To tell the truth, this was hard work. And that was why I always avoided beginning and producing new things. I was not feeling comfortable. I needed to work harder and harder. So at last, I gave up.

My forties

In my forties, I came to a threshold. I knew that I was hardworking. It was also obvious that I was talented. I was good at school, good at work, good at relationships. That was not all: I was also lucky. With an optimistic insight for life, I mostly attracted the good to me. But. Yes, but… I deeply had a fear to start new things. What I achieved until now was what I had to do. I had no other choice than achieving to survive in life. And that episode came to an end.

I was now at better conditions. I had more freedom than ever. The time seemed to be OK to start new things. But, I did not know how.

Years passed dreaming. I dreamed that I played an instrument. How about being a blogger? I dreamed that I had a cafe that I ran on benefit of the people in need.

But I was not still starting.

Observing the world around me and getting into more relationships with people, I realized that there was an other way than perfectionism. Creating a new product, starting a new hobby or work didn’t have to be that much difficult.

If you have the will to work on something, just begin it and make progress. It doesn’t have to be completed. Completion itself is a relative concept. And the journey is more important than the destination.

Beginning means breaking into smaller pieces, prioritizing and doing the first task

Working as a project manager, I began to learn breaking huge epics into smaller stories and stories into smaller tasks. Second hint was setting priorities. Beginning the first task started the project. It’s OK not to cover all the details at the beginning. You can’t. Because you learn as you go. You have to adapt to changes. You have to fix bugs. Most of the time you have to add features that you were not aware at the beginning. As you go, tasks complete into stories and stories complete into epics. That is how living projects are created. I saw lots of them. This was the way. Step by step, one by one.

Coping with real life is very similiar to project management. In fact, project management simulates real life issues. Best practises involve real life cases.

The right time is the first time you started dreaming. The right circumstances is the environment you are totally in. The perfect way of doing is breaking the huge scenario into a group of epics which are large meaningful stories. Please do it. Practise working on your whole scenario by breaking epics into stories and stories into tasks. Finally, select the most important step and just do it . Congrats. There you are. You began.

Keep tasks as small as possible. Do them periodically. Have a rhythm. This will let your brain work on the process continuously, even when you are in sleep. So the more you work on your little tasks, the more they will gather to turn into a bundle of useful achievements… As the time passes… And enough of the work is done.

Of course, this is hard work. But it is no more stressing. You’re just exploring the joy in life.

The power of beginning

The hardest step is beginning. Because we are busy and can’t find time. Or we can’t proceed because of the circumstances. May be we don’t have enough money though the work requires it. Or sometimes we wait until we gain the right skills.

This is all perfectionism.

You can learn anything if you spend enough time and effort on it. Not so surprisingly, most of the skills are gained as you practise. To talk for money, if you don’t have enough budget now, say for your hobby, why not starting reading about it? Why not reaching out people who practise the hobby and be part of the community? This keeps your mind busy on your dream. Believe me, you’ll find ways to your dream not so later on. Perhaps this is the power of your brain. It’s showing you the foot steps. Or perhaps this is selective perception. We’ll talk about it more.

So, let’s just begin.