Is now your moment?
That’s an important question to ask isn’t it?
It Starts with a Dream
Now for over 15 years I have been working with entrepreneurs, artists, dreamers of every kind and whenever you are starting to pursue something new, something creative, a dream, something you’ve never tried before, it’s important to listen to yourself. Because you’ll get feedback that you weren’t even aware that you could pick up on. And when you start anything new or when you see something that you want to strive for, you often start off talking a lot like this. It’ll be like, “Wow! It would be so cool if I can do that. If I could do that, the word “if” is hugely important in this conversation because as long as you are using the word if, that’s a dream. That is something abstract. It’s off in the distance. You don’t have a way in your mind. You haven’t figured out a way to make that dream happen. Now in that case, what you need to be doing is learning more. You need to read a lot of books– lot of books. You need to talk with people who have walked the path that you have been walking. Get on YouTube. You can learn everything on YouTube these days. But you need to learn and build a certain base level or a certain critical density of knowledge about your topic in order in order to get to the second level.
A Change in Thinking
Now the second level is different. As you go about thinking about whatever you’re pursuing, you’ll stop thinking about, “it be so cool if I could do it” and eventually you’ll have a psychological change where it now is, “I could do this.” or “How could I do this?” When you drop the if it’s no longer abstract. Now it’s real. It’s a realistic idea and now you’re at a point where we can start putting together strategies and real plans about what you’re trying to accomplish. And that’s a critical stage you have to get to.
Stage 3 is about Fear
And there is a third stage and it’s for those people who have had that change about “How could I do this?” You’ve dropped the if. But for whatever reason you’ve chosen not to start anyway. And of course I say for whatever reason in a rather tongue-in-cheek manner because you know deep down you know why you haven’t started. You’re afraid. You’re afraid of what would happen if you try something and it doesn’t work. Your personal identity is so wrapped up in this dream that you are more afraid of the possibility that you have to let go of the dream. The potential for losing that is greater, in your mind, than your fear of losing that is greater than the potential win it’s going to do for you if you actually succeed at what you’re trying to do. Your fear of losing that is greater than your hope of succeeding at something that you have been striving for.
Let’s get started
Now depending on where you are in stages one, two, or three, you have different ways to approach. I’ve already discussed one. If you’re at stage one, you want to learn more basically until you have that psychological change. If you’re in stage three, the first thing you need to do is recognize that you’re afraid. When it comes down to it, if you already have had that psychological change, reading more books alone is not going to help you. Obviously we all want to keep learning about our craft become better at it, but craftsmanship requires practice not more abstract thinking about it. You have to do it so if you’re at stage three, you need to get over your fear find a way to acknowledge that you’re afraid, cast it aside, or at least accept it, and take an action step. And also that’s the same stage of your level. If you’re in stage two you know that’s your next step to find a way to start doing something, because without doing something, you’re never going to actually move down to the next step of progression.
Take a First Step
So whatever you’re striving for has a different first step. Now when I say go for it and I’m saying go for it, I don’t mean gamble everything. It’s not the time to bet the farm on this. What you want to do is take the simplest significant step. For example, if you want to be a public speaker at this stage you know what you have to do, you have a decent set of skills it’s now time to get in front of an audience. So reach out to some volunteer or some community organizations in the area and get a chance to speak there. Maybe it’s speaking to a group of children at a high school or an elementary school. Just find an audience. Practice. Get some feedback and improve your craft. Start small; but, you need to start. If you’re in real estate, I know many many people who have read books after books then program after program of spending thousands of dollars sometimes tens of thousands of dollars on learning and education and they’ve never done a real estate deal. If this is part of your challenge, again find something to do. It doesn’t have to be all that extensive. I don’t necessarily mean buy a house or buy a property. What I mean to do you should do is find the potential partner, offer to do something to help him or her do their deal. Maybe it’s do the financials once for them and is this still going to work or not. Maybe it is doing a title search or performing a an evaluation of a prospect property and figure out how to put together a budget for or a rehab. There are many ways to get started but find a way to start. If you’re an educator, put together a lesson plan. Go ahead and find a group of people– a small group of people and teach them– seeing how your content is playing with them. And then finally do what I’m doing. If you want to start building an online presence, start a podcast or a video log. And start doing something because that’s the only way we get further down the course–further progression once you have the base knowledge it’s about action more than anything. So I’m not sure where you are in your progression. Are you in stage 1, stage 2, or stage 3? Do what you need to do learn more and then find when the time is right find a time to start. When you do that you will know when it is your moment.
Maybe it’s right now.
Take care.
