I’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, that waiting for the perfect start can be one of the most effective ways to never start at all. We picture a grand, flawless launch. It’s the kind that makes everyone turn their heads. By doing so, we keep pushing the first step further away. The truth is, big dreams rarely arrive fully formed. They have to be nurtured, shaped, and grown. Piece by piece. Iteration by iteration.
I had a vision when I was at Anantapur LPG Plant. It was of a dashboard application that provides a real-time, actionable view of LPG plant operations. I wanted it to eventually serve every LPG plant in the company. In my head, it already had everything — detailed analytics, real-time alerts and beautiful visualizations. But I faced the reality of starting from scratch. I knew I couldn’t build the complete vision in one go.
So I started with something tiny. Almost underwhelming. A simple real-time count of filled cylinders and an area graph to plot them. That was it — a bare-bones skeleton of what I hoped the system would become. But that small beginning was the seed. Once it existed, momentum took over. The project stopped being just an idea and became something tangible.
I added a new visualization. Then an extra table. Improved refresh speeds. A cleaner interface. Later, integrations with other systems. No single leap was dramatic, but the steady progress made the dashboard more useful, more relevant, and more trusted. Over the weeks and months, the improvements compounded. The one-screen display at a single plant grew into an enterprise-grade dashboard. Eventually, it was deployed centrally for all LPG plants. This deployment gave the company a unified, real-time view of operations. Such a view had never existed before.
That’s when the real impact became clear. The dashboard made it possible to oversee operational efficiency across all plants in real time. Issues are spotted early. Bottlenecks fixed faster. Performance trends understood without guesswork. The insights didn’t just sit on a screen. They led to significant operational gains. Production was optimised in ways that would have been difficult without such visibility.
Looking back, I can see the power of small, incremental improvements. They don’t just bring you closer to the goal — they shape you along the way. Each addition, each tweak, is a lesson in disguise. You get feedback quickly, which means you stop guessing and start knowing. You learn from real use, not just theory. And you realise that the map in your head is never as accurate as the terrain you discover by walking it.
One improvement might seem insignificant on its own — a faster load time, a cleaner chart, a better way of presenting data. But when small wins stack up, they create momentum. And momentum changes everything. It turns a project from “something you’re building” into “something that’s evolving.” That shift is what breathes life into it.
Along the way, your thinking changes too. You start seeing opportunities you never imagined at the start. Problems appear, but so do elegant solutions you couldn’t have planned. This is why waiting for the perfect start is a trap — perfection assumes you already know all the answers. Starting small accepts that you’ll find them on the way.
As James Clear wrote in one of his 3-2-1 Newsletter: “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” Systems thrive on rhythm. On showing up regularly. On consistent improvement. A system that moves slowly but steadily will always outrun a dream that never leaves the drawing board. This is where the growth mindset becomes essential. Believing that skills, products, and ideas can be developed with deliberate effort changes how you work. It takes away the pressure to be great from day one and replaces it with the satisfaction of becoming better each day. You stop asking, “Is this perfect yet?” and start asking, “Is this better than yesterday?”
What began as a humble line chart became a platform that transformed how an entire business function operated — not because of one giant leap, but because of a thousand small steps taken with patience, persistence, and the insights of peers. The destination matters, but it’s the journey — the slow, sometimes messy process of building — that defines the outcome.
The experience taught me that the magic isn’t in the grand unveiling, but in the quiet, persistent work of showing up, improving, and letting small wins compound over time. Every time a big goal is in front of me, I want to remember this simple truth: all journeys start with the first small, single step.
