starting off on the right foot

A friend posted on this new Year's Eve: "Just before midnight, lift your left foot off the ground so that your start the new year on the right foot." Mildly humorous, but it got me thinking about why we would even say such an idiom. 

The origin is uncertain. I found two possibilities.  One is simply that starting a journey correctly is important. Many cultures consider the right foot and right hand as more auspicious than the left. The opposite idion is "get off on the wrong foot." 

Goofy with his right foot forward

In my youthful surfing days, I was a "Goofy foot surfer" because I would place my right foot forward on the surfboard, with the left foot at the back: This stance is the opposite of regular foot surfing, where the surfer places their left foot forward. Being right'handed and right-foot dominant (as when I kick) when I ran sprints, I would put my stronger right leg in back to push off the starting blocks.

Another origin for the idiom is from dance. Starting a dance routine on the right foot is crucial to a smooth performance. Of course, in that usage "right" could also mean "correct."