Why taking action before you’re ready is powerful
Do you feel like you’re always getting ready to be ready? Do you overthink, overanalyze, and generally try to "perfect" something before you take action? (If you’d rather listen to this discussion that read it, scroll all the way down for a link to the podcast!)
You may convince yourself that every question that comes up is a very real concern that must be addressed before moving forward, but if are stuck in this phase, you’re engaged in self-sabotage.
Think about it. It makes sense that you’ll feel discomfort when trying something new. I mean, it’s new. Naturally you don’t have any proof that you can pull off what you’re about to start. Of course a ton of questions, what ifs, concerns, and considerations will bubble up.
Because of that, it’s important to know the difference between what really needs an immediate answer versus what you’re spending time on that you can’t possibly answer until you’re actually moving forward.
The first step in understanding the difference is to become familiar with the two common challenges that pop up in this getting-ready-to-be-ready cycle: 1. The need for control and 2. Facing fear.
The first challenge, attempting to control the process and/or outcome, shows up as hyperfocus on getting all the details straight before moving ahead. In extreme cases, control issues show up as perfectionism, and we all know what a shitshow that can be. Perfectionism ties you up in knots, trapping you in the weeds and details in ways that crush your ability to get moving.
Control is a hamster wheel. You never have it, yet you never cease trying to grasp it. It provides a false sense of security over the process and outcome and keeps you bogged down in the preparation phase, sometimes indefinitely.
If you find yourself in this pattern repeatedly, ask yourself two questions:
Is this question or detail for now or later?
Is it necessary to have the answer before I get going?
For me personally, this toiling-in-the-weeds showed up when I was thinking about leaving my corporate job. There was *so much* to think about. How was I going to get in front of people? How was I going to expand my network? What did I need in terms of software or tools or other things? Did I need to have a budget for things like marketing? What was the process for legally setting up my business? Did I need a website? This is a tiny sampling of the circus that was stirred up in my mind.
Ultimately, I had to decide what was essential to getting started and what could wait. And I had to be willing to call myself out on my own bullshit if I recognized that I was throwing up roadblocks due to resistance.
And that brings us to common challenge #2 on the road to initiation: FEAR.
Obviously, it’s so incredibly normal to have some anxiety when you're getting ready to do something that you've never done. You don't have proof that you can make it work because you haven't done it yet.
When your mind gets all churned up in fear, ask “What am I afraid of?”
That you’ll fail? Be rejected? Not measure up? Look stupid?
Get very clear on what those specific fears are so that you can give them their proper weight.
I’ll give you a very personal (and vulnerable) example of a time this came up for me.
When I was writing my book, one of the recommendations from my publisher was to find someone well-known to give a brief comment or testimonial that could be included to lend credibility and create interest.
That's great advice if you're somebody who's somewhat well-known or at least regarded as an expert in your field but that wasn't my personal scenario. I had just left my corporate job a couple of years ago. I wasn’t connected or regarded as an expert at that time. The publisher basically said, “do your best.”
The thought of reaching out to someone known was super intimidating. It was scary AF. I wasn’t sure I would actually go through with it, but I decided to at least give it some thought before rejecting the notion outright.
First, I had to figure out who I wanted to ask. The two people who came to mind were Steven Pressfield and Seth Godin.
Steven Pressfield wrote a book that I absolutely love and that I recommend frequently: The War of Art. It’s all about facing fear and resistance, and ha – isn’t that exactly the most perfect topic as we are discussing it here?!
On a further note about this perfect topic, the reason Seth Godin came to mind was because I had seen him in an interview with Marie Forleo where he talked about – you guessed it! - facing fear and taking action in a way that really resonated with me.
Both men presented powerful food for thought at a critical time in my journey. It was incredibly intimidating to think that I was going to reach out to them and ask them for something. Like, who the hell did I think I was??
Clearly, my most prominent fear was fear of rejection.
But it seems silly to even call it a fear. It was more like certainty of rejection.
I had to examine that. If I felt certain I would be rejected, what was the fear about? It wouldn’t change anything if I reached out and they said no. I was expecting a no. What it came down to was being willing to take the risk and do something that felt scary, even if I felt 99.9% certain about how it would turn out. (Side note – this brings up a whole other topic around limiting beliefs that we can talk about another day).
Once I’d looked at the fear of rejection, the worst-case scenario was actually that I wasn't going to get a response at all. And? So what? I wasn’t going to die if that happened, and nothing was going to change. I would still publish my book.
So, I sent those emails, fully expecting to get no response. And you know what? They both responded, and their responses were these lovely supportive messages where they did in fact say no, along with other nice words about the accomplishment of completing my book. The most important thing was that I actually communicated with Seth Godin(!) and Steven Pressfield!
That’s pretty damn cool.
Having the courage to send those messages allowed me to have the experience of communicating with two people that had been instrumental to my personal journey. I was able to express my gratitude to them. There was a net win for me in that, and even if I hadn't heard from them, there would've been a net win because I had done something that felt really scary. Even if I had never heard from them, I knew going forward that I can scary things and it’s going to be okay.
Another thing. When you're in the fear place and your mind is churning with the uncomfortable possibilities, it’s worth examining whether what you're avoiding is having your hope taken from you. Because hope is perpetual if you never act, you can always have hope for the future; you can continue to dream and pin your hopes on some yet-to-happen scenario. If you never act, it will always be a possibility.
Don't do that to yourself. That’s a stagnation strategy rather than a growth strategy. Take a chance and learn from it. Surprise yourself. Allow yourself to be surprised by the outcome. Try again with what you’ve learned if it doesn’t go your way the first time.
It’s also possible that it doesn't work out, or may you gain the understanding from the experience that it isn’t what you really want. Isn’t it better to know that so you can move on to what you do really want?
When you try something new, even and especially when you don't feel completely prepared, you build your resiliency around trust - in yourself, in the process - that you will see what you need to see, when you need to see it. Build that resiliency so that you become more and more comfortable with acting before you have every single detail worked out. The reality is that you often can't see what needs to be adjusted or addressed until you're in the new thing. Clarity comes when you experience something in real time instead of theoretically.
The need for control and fear keep you in a disempowered state of perpetual hope that never materializes. Examining your conditioning in these areas so you can put your concerns in their proper place, acknowledge that whatever you do, it won’t be perfect, and most importantly, that you can handle whatever comes up. Trust yourself.
If you’d prefer to listen to the podcast, you can find it here, or by searching for Musings of a High Achiever on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts.