"I'm not ready yet." "Think in two weeks will be better timing." "I haven't done this before."
Sounds familiar? It does to me! 😅
Our brains can so expertly come up with excuses (or what feels like REALLY valid reasons) to delay taking action.
I've had so many examples of this. More so now that I'm self-employed as I'm my own boss and turns out my strong sense of personal responsibility to others isn't as strong and consistent to myself! Time goes by and when I finally do something that I've been procrastinating for so long, it feels like the wait was for nothing really.
🧠 It's just how our brains try to protect us from taking action in the unknown space for something we haven't done before!
📸 About this picture. You can imagine it took few trials to make it appear like it does.
Change the viewer’s angle just a little and the result is no more “perfect”! Sometimes we get caught up in the details that the very detail and overthinking gets in our way.
The impact? Not finishing the task or worse not even starting it! 😖
🛑This is what I like to refer to as ACTION PARALYSIS. A fear of taking action and calling things done because they are not yet to our liking. Not yet PERFECT. We find ourselves waiting for the perfect time or for everything to be perfect.
🤔 Imagine all the ideas that remained in draft for fear of not being good enough?
🤔 All those projects that took off but became too hard to finalise?
I’m no stranger to this fear. 👀
My natural strengths even fuel it. Think strengths like incubator where I enjoy getting lost in deep thought about what could be, the different possibilities and so on. Another strength of mine is attention to detail which naturally comes to me wherein I spot things that could do a bit of tweaking. Both while very useful strengths can fuel perfectionism with the end point constantly moving - sometimes even the actual start point!
I see it with my clients too. Delaying their dream projects because they are not yet ‘ready’, not yet 'perfect'. What's perfect anyway?!
How not to let perfection get in the way:
Time waits for no one. If you think you’ll regret something, what would be worse?
🛑 Regret of INACTION? or
🛑 Regret of IMPERFECTION?
When we choose to take action and make imperfect progress, a guiding question that can help is:
"What would good enough look like?"
Everything is Flawsome.
This is not a stock image. It's my coach friend's kitchen towel that he shared few months ago.
I'd saved this image ever since as it's such a cool word and vibe to embody. Now sharing with his permission as some inspiration to discover and embrace your own version of "flawsomeness"!
"Flawsome (adj.) - embracing your flaws and knowing you are awesome regardless."
Being FLAWSOME makes you be awesome without the pressure of striving to be PERFECT. Imagine how less stressed we would all be, how much more open we would be to feedback and forgiveness - of ourselves and of others.
If you are still reading, it's most likely that you are thinking of things that you have been wanting to start, progress or finish. You know those things that no one is following up with you on. Things for YOU that you haven't given yourself permission to be flawsome. If you are thinking of all the things that can go wrong, have a read of my first article on how I got over my starting troubles.
Still waiting for the perfect time or for everything to be perfect?
Downtime and pondering over ideas can be a good thing for creativity. However not at the expense of delaying taking any action at all as the process of doing things will give us even more insight and experience to get better!
💭 What have you been waiting for all the stars to align so you can start on a good foot?
💭 Or maybe you can already do something about it?
💭 What's the worst that would happen?
Hello👋🏽 Thank you for reading this far! I'm Anne, passionate about helping people grow and get addicted to living outside their comfort zone for what matters to them. I do this through coaching, sharing thoughts and most importantly leading by example in my own life. 🌱
Feeling ready to take courageous steps toward your WHAT-IFS? ✨ Reach out for a chemistry check and to see if coaching is the right fit for you: DM me on LinkedIn, Instagram or email anne@unhiddenpotential.com.