Beginnings Are Always Messy: Building Your Year with Grace and Grit
Ah, New Year’s Day. For some, it’s a quiet morning filled with reflection, journaling, and an Instagram-worthy smoothie bowl. For others, it’s crawling out of bed, squinting at the sun, and swearing off red wine forever. Maybe you drank from the NYE punch bowl like it was a personal challenge, or maybe you simply lost track of time in a sea of celebrations and woke up today with no grand plans for 2025—despite your best intentions. Either way, here’s your reminder: beginnings are messy.
Let’s lean into that for a minute.
Think about the start of anything worthwhile: cooking a meal, doing a craft, building a home. The kitchen is chaos before dinner hits the table. Craft supplies spill over, and you lose at least one glue stick to the abyss.
Building a home? Oh, that’s a special kind of messy. Let’s go there, because it’s the perfect metaphor for what we’re building this year—a life that’s intentional, fulfilling, and ours.
Step One: The Blueprint
Every house starts with a plan. You can’t just wake up one morning and decide to slap a few walls together and call it home (well, you could, but let’s not). Having built our own home this past year, it has taught me many valuable lessons that I carry with me in life. First, you need that blueprint. Similarly, when it comes to building your year, it’s okay if you didn’t wake up today with a perfectly polished list of goals and intentions. But you do need a starting point.
Start with the basics:
What do you want to build? A stronger body? A calmer mind? More connection in your relationships?
What tools do you need? Maybe it’s a workout plan, a therapist, a morning routine, or even just a good water bottle.
Who’s going to help? No one builds a house alone. Find your people—friends, mentors, coaches, or even a supportive online community.
It doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, it won’t be. Beginnings never are. The first draft of any blueprint is full of crossed-out ideas and coffee stains. That’s normal. Just get it down on paper (or in your notes app).
Step Two: The Delivery Day Mess
Once you’ve got your plan, the materials start rolling in. Suddenly, there’s lumber stacked in the driveway, nails scattered across the floor, and the delivery of the one material item you needed like, yesterday…is an hour late. Overwhelm kicks in. It’s messy, but this is where the magic begins—because you’re invested now.
This is how life feels when you start working toward your goals. You’ve made the decision to eat healthier, and now your fridge is full of kale you don’t know what to do with. You’ve committed to journaling, and now your desk is buried under notebooks and half-written entries.
It’s tempting to throw in the towel at this stage, but here’s the thing: that clutter? It’s proof that you’re doing the work. Sawdust on the floor means progress. Keep going.
Step Three: The Build
As the saws rev and the hammers fly, your house starts to take shape. Walls go up. Windows are installed. The framework of what you’re building becomes real. But the mess? Oh, it doesn’t go away. In fact, it gets worse before it gets better. Scraps of wood, stray screws, and piles of debris surround the space. It’s easy to feel like the mess will never end.
Here’s the truth: it doesn’t. Not completely. Even when the house stands tall and offers shelter, there’s still cleanup to be done. But that’s part of the process. Each scrap and smudge represents progress—a step forward in building something beautiful.
This is your reminder to embrace the mess. It’s not a sign that you’re failing; it’s a sign that you’re building.
Step Four: Moving In and Keeping It Up
Eventually, the house is complete. You step inside, look around, and feel a surge of pride. You built this. But here’s the catch—life doesn’t stop being messy just because the big project is done. You’ve still got to furnish the rooms, hang the curtains, and, yes, clean up after yourself.
This is where many of us get tripped up in our wellness journeys. We think we’ll hit a point where everything feels “done”—goals achieved, problems solved, life in perfect balance. But the truth is, life requires constant housekeeping. You’ll need to take inventory, declutter what no longer serves you, and maintain what you’ve built. And, of course, you’ve still got to cook dinner every night (messy beginnings, remember?).
Your Year, Your Home
Today, as you nurse that post-NYE headache or stare at a blank journal page, remember that beginnings are supposed to be messy. The important thing is to start:
Make the plan.
Gather the tools.
Accept the mess as part of the process.
Tomorrow, let the hammers fly. Build something beautiful this year, one messy step at a time.
And when you find yourself tripping over the clutter, remember this: every scrap on the floor is a reminder of what you’re creating. Keep going—you’re building a life that’s yours, and that’s worth every bit of the mess.