Your First Step Doesn’t Have to Be Pretty. It Just Has to Happen.
Big ideas have a funny way of looking polished in hindsight.
Once the business is running, the organization is established or the new idea has taken off, it’s easy to tell the story as if there was always a plan. A clear path. A moment when someone knew exactly what they were doing and confidently marched toward it.
That has not been my experience.
Some of the most meaningful things I’ve built started with a messy idea and the willingness to do something with it.
The plan before there was a plan
When I first started thinking seriously about owning a dairy farm, I was working as a dairy cattle nutritionist. One day, on a lunch break in Sparta, Wisconsin, I sat down with a Subway sandwich, a piece of loose-leaf paper and an idea.
I started writing down numbers.
How many cows could we milk? What would each cow cost? What did I know about feed costs? How much would we need to borrow?
It was more than a dream, but it wasn't a business plan, since there wasn’t even a spreadsheet involved.
But it was a start.
Eventually, I brought in an experienced consultant. We built a real business plan. We met with lenders. Then we met with some of them again. I had about 10% equity and needed grants and guaranteed funds to make the numbers work.
Finally, one lender said yes.
That messy piece of paper eventually became Heartwood Farm: 205 cows, 241 acres, equipment, employees and 15 years of getting to call myself a dairy farmer.
But none of that existed when I wrote down those first numbers.
I just started.
Stop requiring certainty before action
We often think confidence comes before action.
I think it frequently works the other way around.
You take one step. You learn something. That gives you enough information to take another step. You meet someone who can help. The idea changes. You discover what won’t work. You adjust.
Eventually, something that once felt like a wild idea begins to look suspiciously like a plan.
I saw the same thing happen when we started Dairy Girl Network. It began with a simple desire to get women together for dinner during World Dairy Expo. We started a Facebook group so everyone would know where to meet. More women wanted to come than we expected, so suddenly I needed to find a venue.
Women made connections that night. Job offers followed. The next gathering grew. Eventually people told us, essentially, “This needs to be a thing.”
So we made it a thing.
We didn’t start by knowing what Dairy Girl Network would become.
We started by getting people together for dinner.
What is your messy first step?
Maybe you have an idea for a business.
Maybe there’s something inside your organization that you know could work better.
Maybe you want to apply for a position that feels slightly beyond you, launch the side hustle, pitch the project, create something your community needs or finally have the conversation you’ve been avoiding.
You do not need to know steps seven through 27 before you take step one.
Instead, ask yourself:
What is the smallest action that would make this idea more real?
Who knows something I don’t know yet?
Who could be an advocate for this idea?
What information do I actually need before taking the next step?
Am I waiting because more preparation is necessary, or because starting feels uncomfortable?
There is an important difference between being thoughtful and hiding behind preparation.
You can refine an idea while you’re moving.
You can change the plan.
You can ask for help.
You can discover that your original idea wasn’t quite right and build something better because of it.
But you can’t learn much from an idea you never start.
The path toward the things we really want is rarely a confident, straight line. It can be herky-jerky. It can involve scribbled notes, unanswered questions, rejection, and plenty of moments when you wonder whether you know what you’re doing.
That’s okay.
Take the first messy step anyway.
Because sometimes the only way to discover what an idea can become is to start. Need a little help getting started? Reach out today.
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