Thin the beets

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I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, but for the past few years I’ve set an intention, choosing a word or phrase as a reference point. It’s like a compass heading I can check if I feel like I’m beginning to drift or become unmoored.

This year’s intention is to “thin the beets”.

It’s my reminder to take imperfect action.

Its origin? At Thanksgiving, I had to gather some beets from my father’s garden for our harvest meal. My dad is a host for the Willing Workers On Organic Farms (WWOOF) program, so he gets enthusiastic help with the garden. But sometimes the coming and going of extra hands means that things get overlooked. I found that the patch of beets had not been thinned.

Instead of neatly spaced rows, the plants were growing right up against each other. The beet roots were wedged together. I had to wrestle with each one to pry and cajole it out of the compacted soil. If the patch had been thinned earlier in the season, pulling out some of the young beets to give the others space to mature, then my chore would have been much easier.

Why is this image meaningful? And how does it relate to imperfect action?

Like so many of us, I’ve experienced tremendous changes over the past few years. I’m now a solopreneur ADHD coach! Pre-pandemic, that was a dream, not a reality.

I’m learning as I go. I have a ton of information, ideas and resources that I think folks will find helpful. Notebooks-full. Smiley-face-number-of-tabs (Android users know) open on my phone of things I want to share. But I’m not sure what to share first. And I’m afraid of making mistakes — of not including enough information, of letting an inaccuracy sneak by me, of not pointing out an exception. If I let ideas combine and co-mingle, I get bogged down in explaining the background. How much is enough? How much is too much? What will folks relate to?

Yet, I can’t wait until I’m one hundred percent certain of an action. I’d never act.

There is no perfect way to thin beets. It doesn’t matter which ones you pull and which ones you leave. You just start. What matters is that you pull some, and you leave space. That lets the rest grow. You take imperfect action.

So when I’m struggling to decide what to share next, and if it will be good enough, I remind myself to thin the beets — take a single idea and share it, before it starts to tangle with other ideas. Make space in my brain for something else to pop up to prominence. I remind myself to make an imperfect action.

“Thin the beets” means:
  • Take the small ideas and use them.
  • Thinning makes room for the big ideas to grow.
  • Harvest some ideas before they all tangle.
  • It’s hard to pull a crowded beet.
  • Beet greens are good when they’re young.
  • And some ideas need more time.
  • You can’t know which is which until you try.
  • When you’re thinning beets, which ones you pull and which ones you keep in the soil doesn’t matter. No single beet is precious. What matters is that you make the space for the ones left over to grow.
  • What matters is the practice of taking imperfect action.
Does this phrase resonate for you in the season you’re in? Is there another word or phrase that you are using as a wayfinder? Please share in the comments!

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Comments

glowingforest said…
Omg, thank you so much for this. I struggle so much with tangled ideas, and it's often so hard to convince myself to make a move, to take imperfect action. I try to remind myself that "perfect is the enemy of done", but it's hard to apply that expression when I don't even know what thing to try to do, and telling myself to "just pick something" isn't all that effective once analysis paralysis sets in.

"Thin the beets" is great because it reminds me clearly that I can't expect to figure out ahead of time (ie. right now) which idea, which partial plan of action, will turn out best - and yet I must pick something to work on - and it's *actually ok to make a choice without knowing the outcome*.
February 7, 2024 at 12:14 PM
Randy Henderson said…
I'm so glad this resonated for you!!
February 8, 2024 at 3:50 PM
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