I Had No Idea What I Was Doing but I Started Anyway
This morning started with a simple goal.
I wanted to create a free printable checklist for the people who subscribe to my website.
I also wanted to make sure the subscribers who had joined before I had my email automations set up received it too.
The goal was simple.
Create the checklist.
Upload it.
Send it to my current subscribers.
Add it to the welcome email automation for future subscribers.
Done.
Simple.
Or so I thought.
Now, to be clear, I'm not new to Canva.
I use Canva all the time.
I've created graphics, social media posts, banners, flyers, digital products, printables, and more things than I can count.
I've even created entire books in Canva.
So this wasn't a situation where I opened Canva for the first time and had no idea what I was looking at.
The problem was that I hadn't used Canva to create anything substantial in about a year.
Apparently, a year in internet time is roughly equivalent to disappearing into the woods for a decade.
Because when I opened Canva, I felt completely lost.
Things weren't where I remembered them being.
Things didn't work the way I remembered them working.
Simple tasks suddenly felt complicated.
I kept thinking, "Surely it's me."
Then a few minutes later I'd think, "Nope, I think Canva changed everything."
Then I'd go right back to thinking it was me again.
At some point, I honestly couldn't tell who was causing the problem anymore.
Me or Canva.
Probably both.
All I know is that I went into that project feeling fairly confident because I'd used Canva so much in the past.
Then ten minutes later I was sitting there wondering why I couldn't do things that used to feel completely natural.
Baby, when I tell you I missed a lot, I missed a whole lot.
And don't even get me started on software updates.
I understand things have to evolve.
I understand technology changes.
But sometimes I think these companies and I have very different definitions of the word "improvement."
I thought updates were supposed to make things easier.
Meanwhile, I'm staring at the screen wondering why I suddenly can't do something I've done a hundred times before.
At one point I was trying to figure out why my checklist wouldn't fit onto a single page.
I kept changing sizes.
Moving things around.
Trying different layouts.
Trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
My daughter looked at it.
I looked at it.
We both clicked around.
Then she walked away and I kept experimenting.
Eventually I stopped trying to understand every little thing and just started testing things.
Click.
Try.
Undo.
Try again.
That's when something interesting happened.
Not because someone gave me a perfect set of instructions.
Not because I suddenly became an expert.
But because I stayed with the problem long enough to solve it.
Then came the printer.
Lord help me.
I decided I should probably print a copy before sending it to subscribers.
After all, if other people were going to print it, I wanted to see exactly what they would see.
That seemed reasonable.
What was not reasonable was what happened next.
Somehow I managed to print just about everything except the page I actually wanted.
Pages started coming out of the printer one after another.
At first I thought the page I needed would be next.
It wasn't.
Then I thought surely it would be the next one.
It wasn't.
The printer just kept going.
And going.
And going.
By the time it was over, I had printed more than thirty pages and still hadn't gotten the one page I was actually trying to print until the very end.
Then, somewhere around page ten, I realized something even better.
Several of those completely unnecessary pages were printing on my expensive photo paper.
Not regular paper.
Not the cheap paper.
The good paper.
The paper you're supposed to save for things that actually matter.
So now I wasn't just confused.
I was confused and watching money come out of my printer one sheet at a time.
Gotta love it.
The funny thing is that even after all that, the final checklist still wasn't exactly what I originally wanted.
In my head, the sections had a certain order.
Home.
Peace of Mind.
Self-Care.
Rebuilding.
Simple.
Except by the time I finally got everything to fit onto one page, the order somehow became:
Self-Care.
Peace of Mind.
Home.
Rebuilding.
Do I know exactly how that happened?
No.
Do I love that it happened?
Also no.
But at some point, I looked at the page and realized something important.
Everything I wanted was there.
Every checklist item was there.
The message was there.
The little plant graphic showing growth from a tiny bud to a fully grown plant was there.
The reminder that says, "Please remember, slow growth is still growth" was there.
My website address was there.
Most importantly, it all fit on one page.
Was it exactly what I pictured when I started?
No.
Was it perfect?
No.
Was it finished?
Yes.
And sometimes that's what matters.
The funny thing is that this whole experience reminded me of how I've learned almost everything over the last few years.
Websites.
WordPress.
SEO.
AI.
Email systems.
Content creation.
Most of the time, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing when I start.
Not because I'm incapable.
Not because I'm not smart enough.
But because every new thing feels confusing before it feels familiar.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped expecting myself to know everything before I begin.
I stopped waiting until I felt confident.
I stopped believing I needed a perfect plan.
Most of the time, confidence comes later.
After the frustration.
After the wasted paper.
After the wrong turns.
After the moments when you're convinced you've broken something.
And after you've fixed it.
By the end of the day, the checklist was finished.
The PDF was uploaded.
My existing subscribers received it.
Future subscribers would automatically receive it through the welcome email.
The download button worked.
The email worked.
The automation worked.
The system was doing exactly what I wanted it to do.
Not because I knew what I was doing when I started.
Because I started anyway.
Looking back, I think one of the biggest lies we tell ourselves is that we need to know how to do something before we begin.
Most of the time, we learn by beginning.
We learn by trying.
We learn by getting frustrated.
We learn by making mistakes.
We learn by figuring things out one problem at a time.
And sometimes we learn that finished is better than perfect.
Today wasn't really about a checklist.
It was about being willing to be a beginner.
Again.
I still don't know what I'm doing half the time.
But these days, I start anyway.