Fear and Procrastination- A Deadly Combination
As I sit here in a hostel in the beautiful Stradbroke Island or as the locals call it Straddie. I realise that I’m procrastinating about what to post on my social media accounts and concerned about how to grow my Facebook group that helps people to get a calm mind in just 10 minutes a day.
When I set up my coaching business I wanted to help as many people as possible get free of the mind. I realised it’s the one thing that holds people back and we’re often not aware of our patterns of behaviour. The joy of helping a client finally understand the reason why they have been stuck doing the same thing over and over. While seeing them go from strength to strength and conquering old patterns is why I became a coach. If I didn’t need money to travel and live I would do it for free and often have when I’m with people for long enough.
When I procrastinate, I find it’s because my creative juices have dried up and being on my own, I miss bouncing ideas off colleagues in the office. The other reason is that I worry that it won’t resonate with people the average attention span being 8 seconds. How can you catch someone with in that time? With so much content out there why would anyone want to listen to what I have to say?
It’s at that moment when I have to be my own coach ‘remember how far you have come in your own transformation; you know this stuff as your living proof it works.’ You have helped your clients go on to live happy amazing lives because you didn’t stop and quit.
The other reason I procrastinate is when I just don’t like what I have to do, in my case it’s social media. I’ve read all the books about how to build your following and completed courses on how to get people to join your group. I’m in so many groups myself that it’s a bit overwhelming at times. I am very protective over my mind and spending hours on social media is just not what I wanted to do. Yet I understand it’s a business tool and can help me reach lots of people.
When you start your own business, you always have in the back of your mind, you can always go back to that corporate job if you don’t make it. It’s like this little safety net that I think can stop you moving forward at times or really going for it. What you want to do is burn that bridge and know that you can’t go back no matter what as that would drive you forward.
I know that most of us avoid fear and I was certainly one of those people for a very long time, but now I use fear in a different way. It’s my indicator that I’m doing something I have never done before but once I do it will get easier and easier. In January I made a packed to do Facebook lives on my account every day which scared the crap out of me but everyone I do it gets easier. I hope that in a years’ time I can look back at that bumbling first video and see how far I’ve come.
Fear can drive you to do great things and take risks that perhaps you wouldn’t do unless you were up against it. What is it that you are afraid of? Can you do something today to make that fear less, by exposing yourself to it? I also remember my mums’ words ‘It’s never as bad as you think it will be’ and she is right.
Every time I push through fear and procrastination, I feel amazing as I’ve achieved something that I thought was not possible. This makes me drive even more into the uncomfortable and even if I fall flat on my face, I got a little bit less fearful and I learnt something new to work on.
To become successful, you must do the things unsuccessful people won’t do. I remind myself of this everyday as I was comfortable in my life for so many years but its in the uncomfortable that you will truly grow and achieve your dreams.
Now I look at procrastination as an indicator that I’m getting stressed which means I’m doing something that scares me. So, it’s time to keep taking that action and moving forward. What are you procrastinating or fearing in your life?
