Welcome to Amplify with Jess Tro, a show designed to help women get out of their heads and into their zone of influence. Happy Monday, everyone! Here’s some food for thought to start your week.

Starting something new can feel overwhelming, like being lost in an unfamiliar place. Many experience this in various situations, from starting a new job to becoming a parent. The key is to embrace the idea of being a beginner and use the word “yet” to frame our progress. This shifts our mindset from feeling behind to recognizing that we are in the process of growth. It’s important to understand that feeling clumsy and disorganized at the start is normal, and there may not be definitive finish lines in life. Instead of focusing on arrival, we should celebrate our progress and give ourselves credit for being in the process.

Starting something new can take you from feeling like an expert to feeling like you’re in a foreign country without knowing the language, the room is dark, and you can’t find the light switch—and oh, also, your phone is dead. You’re back to being a beginner. Maybe you’ve felt this in a different way: a new day at a job, or perhaps you’ve signed up for a spin class where everyone knows how high their bike seat is supposed to go, and you don’t even know how to release the knob to adjust it. This actually happened to me on Saturday.

Being a beginner can feel as small as navigating a new grocery store looking for peanut butter or as big as becoming a parent or starting a company. But there’s one word that I like to use when I’m feeling behind or in a beginner’s season, and that word is “yet.” Our brains like things to be definitive. You’re good, or you’re bad at this; you’re finished, or you’re not finished; you’re happy, or you’re sad. It doesn’t like to sit in limbo or any gray area.

So by telling our brain, we’re in progress or in the process of something—which almost always is the case—we need to train it to believe that story. By adding the word “yet” to our aspirations that we haven’t achieved or dreams that we haven’t crossed off our list, we tell ourselves and our brains, “Hey, I’m working on it. Go easy on me over here.” This isn’t good yet, or I’m not quite ready yet. I’m not where I want to be yet. I haven’t finished writing my book yet. I’m not getting paid what I want to be paid yet.

We can’t remove the negative self-talk or doubts, especially when we’re beginners, but we can reshape it by adding “yet” to remind ourselves that being in the process is not just okay; it’s right where we need to be. When you’re a beginner, it’s going to feel clunky and unorganized. Things will take longer than you think. Your plans will change hourly or by the minute, and you’ll have a roller coaster of mood swings. You’ll speak into a mic and wonder if it’s on. Remember, none of those things mean that it’s not working. It means that you are just getting started.

So I will leave you with this: take out the idea of arrival in your life. There will rarely be finish lines. Instead, how can you give yourself that same pat on the back when you’re in the process?

Thanks for listening to Amplify! If you are a fan of the show, show us some podcast love by giving us a rating and review, and give us a follow at Mic Drop Workshop and at Jess Ekstrom. Coming up on Amplify…

I think you still think that the thing that people walk away from your workshops with is anything you say at a seminar, the only thing they will remember is what they write down. And he was like, so your job is to get them to realize your thing in their voice. And I was like, oh, that is so interesting, and totally shifted my perspective.