Why You Are Waiting to Start Your Life?

Waiting until you have more money.  More Time.  Until after this thing is over…and oh yeah, you need to also wait until…We wait. We find great reasons to put off taking risks to start a new career, go back to school or start that business.  But why?  Fear.  As long as we have these “valid reasons” to wait, then we don’t have to sit with the real fears that may be driving the bus. Here are a few ways fear can keep us from getting started, no matter how motivated and ready we claim to be.

Fear it Won’t Be Perfect. The prison of perfectionism is something we address a lot on the podcast for good reason, because it’s poison. Perfect is an illusion, but even if you know that intellectually, your scared child on the inside who didn’t quite feel good enough for parents is still keeping your hand off the lever of change. Living with the binary of it’s either got to be Perfect or it will have to be Horrible is so limiting it can keep you from taking any steps at all, because deep down that feel safer.  If you’re not perfect you won’t be ok as a person, and as ludicrous as that sounds out loud, it can be very true for many of you.

Fear of Trusting the Good. Sounds crazy but it makes sense. It’s so vulnerable to open yourself up to believing things will work out and that taking this risk is a good thing. Especially if you’ve been let down in the past by important people in your life. As soon as you let your guard down the good thing may have been ripped away.

So, what you’re really waiting for is the courage to make that thing real. That weight loss, that setting aside cash for your business venture, that going back to school. Because once all of the perceived obstacles are out of the way, then we have no more excuses, and we must face perhaps our real fears like I just outlined above. Fear of failure. I mean what if you mess this up? What if you waste a ton of money and you were wrong? Perfectionism plays apart of this too because we give ourselves only options and absolutes meaning it’s either going to go perfectly or it’s going to be all horrible. The denial of reality is here as well. Real life is usually a mixed bag where some of it’s great, and profound, and some of it isn’t so great.  The journey of putting yourself out there and finally pursuing what matters most to you it’s going to feel amazing. But there will be hiccups and trials and screw ups and delays because that’s life.

Change is risk and change equals loss, even if that loss is of the old you are ready to be done with. Going with the flow means letting go of control and that can be scary for you. Again, especially if you have let go in the past and things didn’t go well. I like to think that despite all of this, you can move forward.

One way I encourage clients to do this is to visualize and talk about what their life will be like if they Don’t make these changes. Then allow themselves to sit in the anger and resentment they will feel toward themselves later if they don’t allow bravery to be bigger than their fear. Really sit with that.  Let it come to a slow boil.  Then let THESE feelings drive your choices.  Not fear.  Not anymore.