Lessons from the Garden: 1: Getting Started is the Hardest Part

I have been struggling to set aside time for myself. Drawing, reading, and writing were once my favorite pastimes, but now I spend most of my free time in the garden, growing as much of our produce as possible. Most days, I’m excited to see how the plants are doing and how the soil is improving, but some days, I struggle to complete even a simple task. I’ve learned repeatedly that getting started is the hardest part. Steven Covey even discusses this in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People when helping his son take over the stewardship of the lawn.

Between the obstacles I put in my own way, mom guilt, and task paralysis, I’ve made it difficult to carve out time for activities I feel I can’t justify—activities that aren’t directly helping or serving others. Despite all of this, I’m pushing through to set my path toward growth and self-fulfillment.

I’ve never struggled with creative problem-solving, and gardening has always been a space full of problems and obstacles. Starting a garden seems to come with a large upfront cost—there’s soil, pots, seeds, time, and the potential for failure to keep people frozen in place. But if you think about it, most of these hurdles can be overcome with minimal effort. You can repurpose tin cans from canned vegetables and punch holes in the bottom with a nail to create pots. A cardboard box is an ideal planter for the store-bought potatoes that grew eyes in your cupboard. You can collect seeds from the produce you buy at the store (not all seeds will germinate, but you can learn more here). After that, you just need to buy one bag of soil, and you can get started. If you have a yard, you can improve your soil with food scraps and leaf mulch, both of which are free and will gradually improve your soil quality.

As a military spouse, we’ve lived in many different locations, and I’ve gardened in tin cans, pots, and homemade raised planters. I’ve never let a lack of space or the fact that we’re renting stop me from growing plants. It has limited my plant choices and the amount I could grow, but I’ve always found a way to get my hands in the dirt.

Getting started can also be difficult in your professional life and you may struggle with getting started on a task. I find that task paralysis is my biggest issue at work. I know I have something to complete, but I’m not looking forward to it because it feels daunting in some way. Often, it’s a phone call to someone who needs more than the usual amount of support or clearing out my email inbox after being on vacation. Waiting longer to complete the task doesn’t make it any less daunting, but that’s usually my inclination. When it’s an unpleasant task, I put it on my to-do list for the day and promise myself a tea break afterward. I could write a whole post about tea one day and show you my tea drawer, but that’s for another time.

Creating a task list allows me to structure my day not just by the importance of the items but also by their difficulty level. For me, difficulty also includes how much mental energy the task will require. When I have a large task—like responding to 80 emails after returning from PTO—I break it down into manageable chunks, making it feel more achievable and allowing me to track my progress. When you complete a task in the garden, there’s almost always a visual reward—you can see the results of your labor. It’s incredibly satisfying to collect a basket of produce, prune a whole row of lavender, or weed a flower bed. Conversely, clearing out emails doesn’t offer that same immediate satisfaction, especially since many emails require follow-up.

If you find you’re having a particularly difficult day, I recommend trying a mindfulness exercise to help recenter yourself and become more present so you can tackle the task at hand. The Mayo Clinic has a quick overview here.

After some introspection on the obstacles in my way, I realized that, I didn’t always struggle to dedicate time to self-improvement, nor did I have difficulty creating new habits. That was a lifetime ago, when I was young and serving in the Army. After I left the service and started college, I began the habit of overextending myself. Since getting married to a servicemember and having children, my tendency to overextend has only grown.

At the heart of it all is my need to have hobbies that serve others. In our culture, mothers are often criticized for any activities that are perceived as detracting from the home. The only hobbies that aren’t frowned upon are those that support others, like volunteering, cooking, sewing, and gardening. Taking time for activities outside of those is seen as either detracting from the children (if they’re still awake) or from the marriage (if it means spending less time with your spouse). That was my biggest obstacle when paving my path forward. What do I have to fail at in order to carve out time for self-improvement?

In the end, I decided that I’m worth the investment, and my family won’t suffer if I take time to write and draw, just as they don’t suffer when it’s planting or harvest season and I spend hours in the garden. They can, of course, join me and write and draw themselves or run amuck, just as they do in the garden.