I Did Two Things Today That Scared Me Silly — And I Liked It.
No I’m not going to tell you what my two things were but what I can tell you is that they scared the heebie jeebies out of me. I liked it so much because I knew I needed to do them so badly and procrastinated so much until these two things were ever-present on my to do list and eventually began to scare me. So today I did them. Knocked them right off and it felt so good.
This feeling today illustrated a few things to me that I actually already knew, but we tend to forget what’s not happening to us everyday, so we all need a reminder. The first thing is that procrastination is the devil. You can put something off so long you actually start to justify why it’s not that important or why it can wait, until finally it gets pushed off and around so many times we actually decide (after writing it down originally) that it simply does not need to happen. When this happens, a little piece of us dies. A small piece of our goal will never be fulfilled, and this could be deferring our dreams in a worse way than we realize. Therefore, do not procrastinate. Do it right now, and your dreams will thank you.
The second thing is that fear is very real. But you can use this fear to actually help guide you to be more productive in your traditional to do lists. Today when I awoke I had a pretty challenging list and, as most people do, I went right for the low hanging fruit, the “easy” items I could’ve easily done later, and in the process, pretty much skipped all the weightiest items. Why? Because they scared me, and I felt it. But today I used that fear factor to literally direct me to exactly what items I needed to rank as A priority (both urgency and importance) and I knocked those out in the first hour. When I tell you my personal confidence in me went through the roof and I ended up having one of my most productive days in sometime, I tell you that is exactly what happened. And to think, it’s all because I used my fear as a sort of productivity sniffer or an achievement metal detector or sorts to help me decipher and cut through my own inaction, procrastination and ultimately self-defeating attitude.
Fear is also funny because it tricks us into thinking that we don’t really want to accomplish what that one scary item could potentially lead us to. Ironically it’s the same fear that can lead us to the scary to do list item, yet tell us you don’t really want to get this goal done. It is this same paradoxical thinking that causes us to continue to be walking contradictions who say we all want success, then turn around and do the exact opposite of what we know we should do. Ah, humans, we love to love, and love to hurt ourselves all the same. But we can change it.
Tomorrow, pull out that to do list and read each item. Read them out loud if you’re really in the mood. Feel each one on the inside. Listen to your own heart beat. When it starts beating fast as you come upon that item, pause. Be still. Be silent and listen. If your heartbeat increases yet again, you’ve hit gold. Or potential goal, if you only do that item first. Feel the fear and then do it anyway. Isn’t that what many a wise person has defined courage as, ‘feeling the fear and doing it anyway?’ I say so, so let’s do it.
Photo Credit: dosomethingcool.net
Sadiq Ali, MBA, is a speaker, trainer, professor, and author of Millionaire Manners: The Men’s (and Boy’s) Guide to Social Grace in the New Age and founder of Millionaire Manners Academy, a full service educational consulting and training organization that teaches life and career success through great personal and professional etiquette.
