How do you know when to jump in and when to give yourself the time to warm up?

It's always a difficult balance.

Especially with regard to validating a business or product idea.

You may be telling yourself "If not now, then when?"

You might also be thinking "I don't want to regret this. How do I know for sure?"

Through the process of starting this blog, I had to work through this dilemma many times over.

This is actually not my first blog post.

It's my sixth. The previous five will never see the light of day.

You see, a few weeks ago I had a brainstorm. I had been spending a lot of time doing research on business strategy and development. I was following influencers like Ramit Sethi, Pat Flyn, Tara Gentile, Seth Godin, Marie Forleo, Derek Halpern, Tiffany Han, Racheal Cook, Jasmine Star, Caroline Kelso Winegeart, Jason Zook, and many more.

I felt that I can no longer keep all these amazing insights to myself.
I was going to start a blog and curate the best business content that I could find on the internet. I was very excited and jumped into it immediately. I came up with a name for my blog. I bought a domain. I began writing. I researched website templates.

Five blog posts deep I suddenly came to a big realization. It turns out that the concept of curating content involves complex copyright laws. It was not worthwhile to get into. I was so disappointed and felt paralyzed. You know how easy it is to get hooked to your ideas; it's really painful to let go!

It took two weeks for me to recognize that I would have to pivot and change directions.

I was made for bigger and better things. G-d was telling me - don't spend your life in the shadow and safety of others. Go out there, be vulnerable, and give of yourself.

While the original idea was for me to be a curator of other's content, I'm going to surprise myself by producing golden nuggets of my own!

I will never feel ready to talk about what's going on in my head and heart.

So ready or not, here I come!

To all my friends who are standing at the poolside - jump in!
Don't spend your life on the sidelines.

Start before you are ready.

If I wouldn't have started, I never could have seen the holes in my idea.

I needed to begin working on the original idea in order to reach the second one.

It wasn't a waste, it was just a phase. It's all part of the process.

So be passionate, but keep your eyes wide open. Be open to feedback. Don't let yourself be blinded by the picture you have in your head.

As Gabby Bernstein often teaches "Be open to the highest good for all."