Monopoly Deal is a good game, even though the original Monopoly violates multiple articles of the Geneva Convention.

Newtonian physics worked pretty well for a few hundred years, even though Einstein showed that Newton didn’t get everything quite right (I’m guessing plenty of physicists will say that’s an understatement, but I’m not a physicist).

The first iPhone didn’t have a camera and the newest version takes pictures we could only dream of from a camera that fits in your pocket (!) just a few decades ago.

As the kids say,

x walked so y could run.

My wife and I were talking a few weeks ago about how silly you feel when something you used to do no longer works. Or, even worse, when something you used to think was true didn’t have the nuance you realize is necessary. I told her that’s how everything works. We do the best we can with what we know, and we improvise and iterate on the rest as we go.

But we have to start with what we’ve got to move forward.

The key to all of these things is iteration.

You have to start something before you can perfect it. The amazing thing about life is that you get to keep improving as you go along (that’s why we keep having kids—not to have better kids, but so I can be a better dad).

It’s hard to start something. It’s not such a big deal to tweak something you’re already doing. The steering wheel moves smoothly if you’re in motion, but it’s stuck if you aren’t moving.

It’s hard to start working out. It’s easy to change what lifts you do.

It’s hard to develop a new habit. It’s not hard to add something small (what James Clear calls “habit stacking” in his fantastic book Atomic Habits to something you already do, like saying, “After I start the coffee maker, I will do 10 push-ups.”

It’s hard to learn piano. But once you start and gain a bit of skill, learning new chords is cake.

You have to walk before you can run. We don’t get upset with babies for first learning to stabilize their neck, then roll, crawl, pull up, cruise, walk, and then, finally, run. They’re iterating, and we expect it from them.

Let’s start expecting more iteration from ourselves by simply starting.

What’s that big goal you hope to achieve?

Want to write a book? Start with a blog post. Want to get in shape? Start with a walk.

You can’t optimize a blank slate.

Start with the smallest version step toward it—a rough, ugly first draft. A Monopoly if you will.

Iteration only happens once you’ve started. So start.