start now, perfect later

a goal without action is just a thought

my boyfriend and i were at dinner a couple of weeks ago talking about how important it is to be delusional and just do things even when you’re scared. we reflected on how our greatest achievements have come from a place of fear of not being ready or good enough to start, and instead of wasting time overthinking, we just did it. a few weeks later, a subscriber of mine commented on one of my YouTube videos saying she’s inspired by how i pour myself consistently into different activities. these two conversations are essentially what inspired me to write this newsletter because lately, my vibe is to do things even when you don’t feel like you’re ready.

the difference between the person who has your dream career, accomplishments or dream life is that they didn’t wait for the ‘perfect’ time to start. you don’t need to wait for the first of the month, start of the new year or a monday to start. there’s no perfect day to start that youtube channel or start your fitness journey or start your business. make it exist first, then make it good later.

we all know that feeling of fear before trying something new - whether it be day one of your fitness journey, posting your first video on the internet, trying a new hobby or applying for your dream job. our internal dialogue is something like “i’m not qualified enough”, “what if i fail”, “i want more experience first”, “i want to have better ideas before i do it”, etc., and it often deters us from starting altogether.

i want to talk about my experiences of acting on that feeling of inspiration rather than the feeling of ‘being ready’.

Besties Book Club - i will literally never shut up about this because it’s genuinely the best thing i’ve created, but if you’re new here, i created an online book club called Besties Book Club (creative name i know). last year, i got back into my reading grind of devouring fantasy books and i would always talk nonstop about the books i was reading on my YouTube channel. i felt a sense of community on my channel when other people would comment what they’re currently reading, what their favorite genres are, etc. i journaled about how i’ve always wanted to be apart of a book club but i wanted to include people from all over the world, not just in my local physical area. i jot down everything i wanted my book club to embody. i wanted a place where people could not just connect over books, but also other interests and hobbies like: wellness, cooking, fashion, art, traveling, gaming, music and more! instead of overthinking and planning out every meticulous detail, i started building the Besties Book Club via Discord and Patreon. i watched numerous Discord YouTube tutorials on how to build text and voice channels, how to add bots to your server and how to ultimately make a complex platform easily digestible and simple for anyone to join.

after a month of late nights building channels and features into my Discord, the Besties Book Club was born. i resisted the overthinking internal dialogue of ‘what if no one joins’ or ‘this is stupid’, and i simply just acted on my momentum of inspiration. i now have over 50+ book club members from all over the world - The Netherlands, Slovakia, Budapest, Canada, United States and even Brazil! since the creation of my book club, girlies have organized meet ups to meet each other in real life after building connections solely online. it’s crazy to think that this amazing platform that connects people from around the world would not have existed if i gave in to those negative thoughts.

of course the book club was nowhere near where near what it is today, but it’s the fact that i made it exist and made it great later. your product, side hustle or business does not have to be perfect before putting it out into the world. i’ve said it in a couple of previous newsletters but i’ll say it again: a goal without action is just a thought. planning things out to a T can feel inspiring and give you that surge of motivation, but very simply put - that’s all that it is. those are just thoughts and plans. everyone has ideas. but what separates people who have your dream life is the fact that they took action. launch your idea, make it exist, and perfect it as you go.

Collaborating with hotels - being in this industry, it’s really easy to go down the rabbit hole of comparing yourself to other influencers/creators and as a micro creator, i sometimes find myself overanalyzing the vanity ‘follower count’ of other influencers. at first glance, 100k followers look a lot better than 7k - however, that doesn’t tell the full story. engagement comes from building community, not just from going viral and collaborating with hotels is the perfect example of why a higher follower count does not matter.

i remember scrolling through TikTok trying to find cute aesthetic hotels in LA, knowing that influencers collaborate with hotels for free or paid stays in exchange for content. i created a list of over 50+ hotels to reach out to and scoured the internet for marketing and pr emails. all i needed was 1 hotel to give me chance to open this new door of opportunities with travel content. i got rejected every single day and i began thinking “i don’t have enough followers as other influencers”, “i don’t have travel or hospitality content experience”, and “i’m not ready to do a hotel collab because i don’t have the experience”. i hit a lull and stopped putting effort into reaching out to hotels because of these negative internal thoughts until my boyfriend lit a fire in me saying things like “who cares if they reject you? that’s one step closer to a yes” and to just stop caring about vanity numbers and realize that i have the ability to build community.

i got back onto my laptop and kept pitching myself, getting no’s every single day for about a month until one hotel expressed their interest in me. they stated that although my follower count wasn’t in the tens of thousands range, they were impressed with how i’ve built community on my platforms with both short form and long form and how those communities trust me. this truly felt euphoric as i was constantly getting rejected day after day. from there, contracts were signed and i was in LA creating content for a beautiful hotel in exchange for a comp stay, comp dinner and comp room service. i’m writing about this experience not in a way to boast, but hopefully to inspire you to put yourself out there even when you don’t feel ‘ready’. i had this idea that hospitality collaborations were only for macro-influencers, but that is a road block i’ve placed by myself. since that collaboration in early 2024, i’ve collaborated with multiple hotels in California and my goal is to expand my hospitality collaborations internationally.

this experience has instilled confidence in myself as a creator because i pushed past those feelings of ‘not being good enough’ and i continued to put myself out there through constant rejection. there will never be a ‘right’ time and you’ll never feel fully ‘ready’, but that is the point.

Substack - to be completely honest, i have no idea what i’m doing here on substack lol. all i know is that i wanted a writing platform to dump all of my thoughts and maybe make it aesthetic? i love journaling, typing random thoughts in my notes app and i love talking on a more intimate level with my subscribers on youtube. i decided to give this a go because i thought maybe someone else in the world can relate to what goes on in my brain and maybe it can inspire someone to take action with their ideas. i also wanted a platform to house content creation newsletters talking about my experience in this social media industry.

simply put - instead of planning out and drafting newsletters, i just started typing what was on my mind and i clicked ‘post’. i had no idea that we would grow to 20k+ subscribers but here we are, so thank you for being here 🫂

i hope you enjoyed this week’s newsletter! i’m going to be posting bi-weekly on wednesday’s because i felt like every week was forcing something that wasn’t there. i want to continue having fun on here so i hope you don’t mind the bi-weekly posting schedule. i hope this newsletter inspires you to take a couple baby steps to make your ideas come to life and to remind you that your greatest and most impactful things you do in this life will come from a place of fear.