Don't wait until you know who you are to get started. — Austin Kleon
—What lingers after this line?
Action Before Definition
Austin Kleon’s line challenges a common hesitation: the belief that we must first discover a fixed, authentic self before we can begin meaningful work. Instead, he implies that identity is not a prerequisite for action but often its result. In other words, waiting for total clarity can become a refined form of procrastination, one that feels thoughtful while quietly preventing growth. From there, the quote reframes beginnings as experiments rather than declarations. You do not need a perfect label—writer, artist, entrepreneur, leader—to act like one in small ways. By starting before certainty arrives, people allow their abilities, preferences, and values to reveal themselves through practice.
Identity Emerges Through Practice
Seen this way, selfhood is less like a hidden treasure to be uncovered and more like a pattern gradually formed through repetition. The philosopher William James’s Principles of Psychology (1890) emphasizes habit as a force that shapes character, and Kleon’s advice fits neatly within that tradition. We become, in part, what we repeatedly do. Consequently, trying, failing, revising, and trying again are not detours on the road to identity; they are the road itself. A person may begin by imitating others, producing uneven work, or pursuing several interests at once. Yet over time, those scattered efforts start to cohere into a recognizable voice.
The Danger of Waiting for Certainty
However, the urge to wait can feel especially persuasive because uncertainty is uncomfortable. People often imagine that successful creators or professionals began with a strong internal sense of destiny, but biographies usually tell a messier story. Steve Jobs’s 2005 Stanford commencement speech, for example, famously reflects on connecting the dots only in retrospect, not in advance. This matters because certainty often arrives after movement, not before it. If we postpone action until every doubt disappears, we risk building an identity around avoidance rather than discovery. Kleon’s sentence therefore serves as both encouragement and warning: delay can harden into a life pattern.
Permission to Be Incomplete
Equally important, the quote offers relief from the pressure to appear fully formed. Many people, especially at the start of careers or creative lives, feel embarrassed by inconsistency—as though changing interests signals confusion. Yet development is often nonlinear, and early contradictions may be evidence of honest exploration rather than failure. In that sense, Kleon gives permission to be provisional. You can draft a version of yourself in public and revise it later. An aspiring novelist who also teaches, sketches, or freelances is not necessarily off course; rather, those overlapping efforts may become the very material from which a durable identity is made.
A Practical Philosophy of Starting
Ultimately, the quote promotes a practical philosophy: begin with what you can do now, and let understanding catch up. This resembles the spirit of Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird (1994), which urges writers to proceed in manageable steps instead of being paralyzed by grand visions. Small acts build momentum, and momentum produces insight. Therefore, Kleon’s advice is not merely motivational but deeply pragmatic. Make the page, send the application, learn the tool, join the class, publish the draft. Through such concrete beginnings, identity stops being an abstract mystery and becomes something lived into, one action at a time.
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