I’m starting some new features this week, one being Tuesday Tips where I hope to help you move forward with your business. My tips may be technical, as in how to do something, and they may just be something I’ve learned along the way how it all relates to each other. I would love feedback if a tip resonates with you or if it’s something you’d like to know more about!
Without further ado, today’s tip…
That thing on your to-do list that you keep putting off? Do it FIRST.
Most of the time when we commit to doing something, we do so for a number of reasons:
- It’s a project we see as beneficial to us; it has a means to an end. Whether the reason is that it’s something that fuels our creativity, something we love to do, something we need to put dinner on the table, we have a specific reason for justifying why we took on this particular task.
- The person we are doing this “something” for is someone we really want to work with because we want to have or already have some kind of relationship with them.
But sometimes that task gets left on our to-do list. We stare at it in the hopes that maybe, if we stare at it hard enough, it’ll just get itself done. We avoid and procrastinate, and sometimes even beat ourselves up for not just doing it when we should be asking ourselves, “If I wanted this task so much, why am I avoiding it?”
There are a couple things that I have let slide lately. Now, it’s not because I can’t do them. And it’s not because I’m lazy since while I’ve avoided these things, I’ve worked on other things. The reason? Simply: fear. The fact that I let myself believe I needed to wait until I had a huge chunk of time open to work on it. Or a case of the “what ifs”… what if I’m not good at what I said I’d do, or worse, what if I fail?
It’s all simply fear, which is commonly defined as “False Events Appearing Real.” And when you feel the kind of fear and doubt that holds you back from something, it’s your cue to do that thing first and give it 200%. Do it however works best for you, whether that’s sitting down and getting it all done at once, or breaking it up into smaller chunks and taking breaks to keep yourself focused.
When you feel the brick wall of fear creeping up, how do you handle it? Do you have any tactics or strategies to help you get past it? I’d love your feedback!