You were asked to come up with an eight-letter word related to the process you would use to solve the meta.

The award for the best wrong answer goes to Steve G. for the cleverly self-referential "Guessing". Sadly, I could not accept this answer.

Successful solvers noted that the eight words in the four long grid entries began, respectively, with the letters " i, n, i, t, i, a, l, s". The puzzle's title - Beginnings - helped to confirm that the process of solving the meta involved taking the INITIALS of the words in the theme answers, and so "initials" was the meta answer.