Do The Thing

I have the unfortunate habit of second guessing myself. Do I really want to do that? Is that really a good idea? Is that really what I want to eat? It’s not helpful in the least and it certainly doesn’t get me anywhere.

So, when I read this nugget of wisdom in Amy Poehler’s memoir, Yes Please, I had to stop and think:

“The talking about the thing isn’t the thing. The doing of the thing is the thing.”

In the last ten years, I’ve done way too much talking about the thing and way to little doing of the thing.

Here is a quick (and embarrassing) survey of some ideas and projects that I’ve worked on and that I’ve second-guessed (i.e. talked) my way out of:

  • Delicious Discourse was intended to be a thought-provoking food blog (with a cringe-worthy name).
  • To supplement my meager entry-level publishing salary I started iSiento, a baby/house/dog sitting service.
  • There was a magazine to cultivate conscious teens. (I’m still not sure what that means.)
  • I started Medill Days as a creative outlet during graduate school, a blog to document the highs and lows of being a student of journalism.
  • WineVine was an app that would recommend you wines based on the wines that you like.
  • Bikini Snob was an e-commerce and content play all about helping women find the right bikini for them and living the “bikini life.”
  • Trust Your Story was a blog about owning who you are—your story.
  • Way West Coast was a media brand all about living on the West Coast (think Sunset magazine for young people).

I’ll be the first to admit that many of the above are less-than-exciting/good ideas. Some are terrible. Some have a seed of promise. But that’s not the point. The point is that I didn’t follow through with any of them. Not one. (Although I would still love to do Way West Coast—but that’s me talking about the thing, not doing the thing.)

I don’t just struggle with committing to ideas, but also to things that I want to do. I’ve been talking about holding a yoga handstand in the middle of the room for the last three years. It always makes my annual goal list, which I’ve retired. I talk about doing the handstand, but I’m not doing the work to actually do it: asking my teachers for help, practicing my handstands away from the comfort of the wall, falling, and trying again.

Here’s the thing with doing the thing: it’s scary. What if people hate it? What if it’s terrible? What if I fall? What if I fail?

You will fail, you will fall, you will be imperfect. You will also learn, grow, iterate, connect and amaze. But you have to do the thing. Because by not doing the thing you’re accepting the status quo. To get to a new and better place, you need to leave where you are. You can’t be in two places at once.

So, here I am with Be Wild | Be Well, a blog about finding your wild and cultivating your well.

Be Wild | Be Well is not a just another lifestyle blog. Life is far from picture-perfect. It’s messy. It’s beautiful. It’s complicated. It’s joyful. It’s sad. The lows can be devastatingly low, the highs unimaginably high. But in the Be Wild | Be Well spirit, we embrace this imperfectness, we speak our truth, we own it, and we live as big and as bold as we can.

For better or worse, this is me doing the thing.

Do the thing.

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