Start Where You Are

Somewhere along the way I learned that writers should write what they know. There is a lot of discussion about the merit of this advice, but I interpreted it to mean that the best place to start is the place where you are. 

That idea applies to a lot of things in life, and for ERG, that’s exactly what we did.

We started right where we were. 

At that time, we were working extensively with literacy content in a variety of contexts. When we opened in 2004 and realized parent education classes would not pay our bills, our only offering was literacy support.

Our credentials and experience in literacy helped us create and refine a coaching process to support people no matter where they entered into the conversation around literacy. Many teachers wanted to run small, targeted reading groups for students, but just did not know how to make it work. Others wanted more information around reading and writing instruction in addition to working through logistics to make it successful in their settings. Some people already had success and wanted to dig deeper into the literacy process.    

Regardless of where they were, we knew we could grow them.

Many of our early customers still think of ERG as a literacy coaching company, and do not even realize all the other options we have to offer in 2021 until we tell them more about our journey and how we have grown our team and offerings. 

There is no doubt we would not be where we are right now had we not started right where we were. We could never have had diverse offerings and a large team of people until we did the work ourselves. We needed to continue to be practitioners and really work in the work before we could work ON the work. 

So, if you are frustrated with where you are in comparison to where you want to be, you probably are in just the right spot. Give yourself permission to sit there for a minute. 

You have to start where you are or you will never get where you want to be.

For Reflection:

• Do you know where you are in comparison to where you want to be?
• What are you currently doing to move forward? Is it working? What could you adjust?
• How can you leverage your strengths to move into the next best version of yourself?