"If you put off everything till you're sure of it,
you'll never get anything done."
~Norman Vincent Peale
Putting things off is often due to perfectionism or uncertainty. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be sure. Sometimes you just have to jump and do it, even if you aren't sure of it. In most situations, you can revise and tweak your results. Too often we expect ourselves to produce a finished product in our first attempt, and end up not producing anything. Sometimes you have to let go of the outcome in order to get an outcome at all.
This week: Be honest with yourself. Do you end up putting things off because you aren't sure? What is it you are not sure of? Yourself? Your abilities? Your outcome? The product? How does delaying it help you? If you aren't sure, ask yourself "What do I need to do to take the first small step in this?" Take that step and THEN decide what the next step is. You don't have to know it all when you begin. But you have to begin.
Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach and expert in helping people achieve goals and overcome their limitations due to mindset and beliefs. She knows how to get people to take action and to break overwhelming tasks into manageable pieces. For more information and free resources, go to http://www.InnerResourceCenter.com .
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7 comments:
Great advice. I've been putting off doing some marketing for my own business, saying my client work is taking up all of my time. Hmmm. Can we say self-sabatoge? I think it is time to take some small steps so that I continue to bring in new clients. Thanks for the gentle nudge.
Linda, you are so wise in your advice. It is amazing how a small step can set wonderful things - that we cannot even see - in motion. So ... why do we avoid them so often? Okay, I will take one of those steps today!
Linda, this reminds me of a comment I read tonight by Denzel Washington. He told Penn students at their commencement to not be afraid of failure and he encouraged them to take risks. I think too often we get into "paralysis by analysis" when we just need to move forward and do something!
For me this always speaks to the lesson I learned in my NLP training--There is no failure, only feedback. We don't need to worry about being perfect--it is only feedback about how to do it differently next time. So just move forward and do something!
I love this post! My experience with many clients is "frozen due to perfectionist tendencies." Ali is great at saying "just step forward, the path will appear."
So true! It's what life is all about. You can't live your life in your head. You actually have to take action--that's how we learn and grow.
Great advice Linda - it is true the journey of a thousand steps begins with one. A manager once told me to tackle a big task by eating it like an elephant one chunk at a time and I think this applies here too - if we just get our feet moving and into action we will find our way.
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