Success/Success Mindset

JUST DO THE THING ALREADY!

You don’t have to make it so hard, you know? This stuff you build up into SUCH a big fucking deal and think is impossible either at all, or just for YOU?

It’s really not.

Yesterday I faced up to something in my personal life that’s been building up, getting worse, hanging over me for so long now I can’t even really remember a time when it wasn’t there eating away at me.

I’ve known for so long exactly what I need to do …

What my gut is telling me …

What my soul DEMANDS …

And it really was a pretty SIMPLE process for the most part.

But yet, for YEARS, I’ve failed to take action on this thing.

I’ve allowed it to get worse.

I’ve allowed the consequences of not doing anything about it to play out in my life, and I’ve allowed opportunities for something different to pass me by as a result of this.

Not because I didn’t know what to do –

Or (really) how to do it –

But because I felt worried that I didn’t really know my own mind, and besides –

What if, right?!

What if what, you ask?

Well der … WHAT IF??!

(What if alone isn’t a real thing, but yet it seems to have this incredible power over us, doesn’t it?!)

So I gave in.

For so long.

To the fear of the unknown. To the inability to predict exactly what would happen (both good and bad) if I truly laid myself on the line in this area and took the leap of faith I knew I had to take. The worry about not knowing what I really wanted in the first place. Could I trust myself? Was my intuition right? Was it WORTH it to follow my heart?

I didn’t know. How can you?!

But I knew that I wasn’t happy leaving things as they are.

And that if I wanted even a SHOT at creating a new and AWESOME normal in this area of my life?

Then I was going to have to take action.

And eventually I had to acknowledge that in order to take that action? ALL I HAD TO DO WAS TAKE ACTION.

I didn’t need to know in advance what the outcome would be of taking that action.

I didn’t need to rid myself of all my fears.

I didn’t need to figure out ANYTHING else beyond what I already knew, which was that something had to change in my life and I was going to have to instigate that change and then FIGURE IT OUT IN DOING SO.

This is all STANDARD stuff I talk about when it comes to doing the work in the face of resistance and fear in business, so why couldn’t I take my own advice when it came to my personal shit?

The answer is a mixture of not making it a must coupled with not trusting in my own intuition coupled with not BELIEVING that I could create the outcome I really wanted in place of the situation I was allowing myself to stay stuck in, but it was also about something else –

In my head, because I’d been tormenting myself with this stuff for so long, I’d built it up into a REALLY BIG FUCKING DEAL.

I was TERRIFIED of doing what I had to do …

Didn’t know if I was CAPABLE …

SO focused on all the fears and doubts I had that it was near to impossible for me to act on the truth I felt within.

So when I actually did what I needed to do yesterday, and it was really just a pretty simple (if still scary) matter of DOING IT, it was quite weird – slightly disturbing – as well as also a big relief and very empowering – to realise that this thing I’d made into SUCH a big deal was really just a thing.

And taking action on it was really just about, well, taking action on it.

The world didn’t end.

God didn’t come down asking me who the heck I think I am.

The skies didn’t crumble.

Nothing spectacular OR awful happened, it’s just that in the morning when I woke up I was someone who hadn’t taken ownership of a big dream and a few hours later I was someone who HAD done so.

And it made me realise how often we build things up – the things we MOST want, usually, or consider to be more significant or in any way higher value to achieve – into such a big fucking deal that we end up just FROZEN in a mix of fear at how to do it and doubt as to whether we can or SHOULD do it, when really?

It’s just a thing.

Do it, or don’t.

Take action, or not.

But if something is on your mind, and it’s been there a while, and it’s not going away now then let me tell you –

It’s not GOING to go away anytime soon.

So you might as well just press play now because eventually you’re going to (you know it!) and when you do and you realise that you’re still alive and breathing and the world is still spinning in the right direction and actually nobody else even really CARES you’ll wonder why on earth you waited all this time.

Why you built it up and up and up to the point where you’d made it something that only superhuman magical people can do or that YOU’RE not capable of or smart enough for or worthy of.

And why on earth you didn’t just RIP THE FUCKING BANDAID as soon as you heard your soul’s call.

There’s so many things I can think of in my own life, some of which took me YEARS to build up the courage to act on, that once done were just so … normal. It was like – why the fuck did I think this was going to be such a big deal? I mean sure, some of these things really WERE a big fucking deal in terms of what I created or received or let go of in my life as a result, but the actual GETTING to them?

Not a big fucking deal. And usually so much SIMPLER than what I imagined. Like I was pratically hyperventilating – or simply resisting for months and even years – when in the end all I had to do?

Do it, or don’t.

No matter how insane or scary or ginormous your dream may be it really just comes down to the same thing:

Do it, or don’t.

Some of the things I look back on that I waited SO long to act on, things that were truly significant in me finding my true path or moving away from a wrong path, things that when I finally just DID were really pretty damn SIMPLE, include –

* Pitching myself to big publications or podcasts (and often just getting a straight up yes right away, sometimes no answer, but honestly – there’s no more confusingly frustrating yet happy feeling than getting an easy yes to something awesome that you COULD HAVE ASKED FOR YEARS AGO).

* Following through and doing some seriously scary / tough physical stuff; two prime examples being a National Yoga Competition and the Tough Mudder race … in the end it was really just a matter of not THINKING about it so much and just doing it.

* Packing up my entire house and all my possessions and going ‘location free’ with initially less than a few hundred dollars to my name and 2 small children underfoot, including a 5-week old. I put this off for years, thinking it was such a big deal and needed so much preparation, but in the end it was like anything – just do it.

* Leaving a relationship that just flat out wasn’t working and didn’t make me happy – I thought the skies would fall and I’d be a broken mess but really, again, it was just about DOING it and then working through both the good and the tough outcomes of doing so.

* Quitting paid employment back when I was 25, even though I was on a promotion track but just KNEW I had to go back to working for myself. God I was scared of having the talk with my boss! I worked up the guts for MONTHS. I was shaking like I was plugged in to a socket. And in the end – I just did it and it was like huh – okay. Could have done that any time sooner!

I could go on and on here, but you get the idea. What are your examples? Think back to the big hurdles you’ve leaped in your own life that, when you were in the lead up to, felt like SUCH a big fucking scary deal and you delayed for AGES worrying about what would happen or whether it was possible for YOU.

Isn’t it true that in the end it really just came down to doing the work, taking the leap, making the decision to do something and then DOING it?

So much of the stress we live with each day is the stress of ‘what if’ but it’s also the stress of living with ourselves knowing that we’re NOT living in alignment, we’re NOT taking action on our big dreams, we’re NOT laying ourselves on the line and we ARE as a result settling.

Don’t you want to stop settling already?

In your business –

In your relationships –

With your fitness –

With your LIFE?

Don’t you want to save yourself the time and emotional turmoil never mind OPPORTUNITY COST of continuing to wait on the stuff you KNOW you need to take action on?

Don’t you just want to know one way or the other already?

Don’t you want to finally be able to go to bed at night CERTAIN that you’re giving it your all?

It doesn’t get easier by waiting any longer.

You’re not going to become wiser or more prepared for taking scary action.

It’s still going to be terrifying and there’s still going to be some sort of price to pay for anything new you set out to create, anything wrong you decide to let go of.

No matter how long you wait YOU’RE STILL GOING TO HAVE TO DO THE SAME FUCKING THING in the end.

Or, you know, not do it.

And eventually let your dreams languish away.

The only thing that waiting will get you is a more wrinkly face in the mirror and also a LESSENED belief in yourself and your own courage, which in turn will result in greater fear, doubt and uncertainty.

But it’s not going to mean that when you finally summon up the balls to do what you need to do that it feels any easier.

You will NOT be glad you waited.

And you’ll very likely want to kick yourself for making it into such a big deal!

So, let’s play a little game today.

For the sake of the future you SAY you want to write!

Pick one thing.

Just one thing.

That you KNOW you need to deal with, take action on, or finally release.

And don’t think.

Don’t analyse.

Stop trying to KNOW IN ADVANCE.

And today? Just calmly, confidently, deliberately do. the. work.

Let me know how you go x