The Diet of It’s Not Quite Right (Or Stop Stalling)

Imagine for a moment you’re a Neurosurgeon.

You’re scrubbed up and ready to perform an emergency life-saving operation. Everything is in place. In the theatre with you are a second surgeon, your surgical assistant, a couple of technicians, the Anesthesiologist, and their nursing assistant, the scrub nurse, and the Circulating nurse, the Holding room nurse,  and the Recovery nurse.

It’s a busy room. All of these people taking the lead from you. And the care of the patient is entirely in your hands.

You are in charge.

You then turn to them all and say, ‘Ever so sorry, it’s not quite right. I don’t like what I’m wearing today. Let’s do this next week. Wake them up. They’ll understand.’ 

That’s insane!

Yep. Ludicrous.

Wouldn’t happen!

Nope. Probably not.

But do you do it? Do you go so far with your own work, ideas, creative projects, plans and then cop out at the last minute with some ludicrous excuse or behaviour, unfathomable to everyone else except you? All the while you are falling for its not quite right reason.

Living on a diet of it’s not quite right will eventually starve you. Of your joy, your creativity, passion, happiness, well-being, confidence, self-esteem … to name a few. 

Stop stalling.

• If you want to launch your website but you aren’t 100% happy with the font because it’s not quite right, you’re stalling or perhaps scared of what others might think when you shove it out here, or both.

• If you’re waiting until your children are in school before you pick up the pen and start creative writing again, you’re stalling.

• If you’re always doing things for others because you can’t get started on your own stuff, you’re stalling and probably avoiding.

• If you want to change career from the one that sucks your soul to the one that makes sense and fits your core values, but you’ve never even asked yourself what your values are, you’re stalling and not taking accountability for your happiness.

• If you’re persistently looking about, seeing ideas that are successful for others, and change yours to look exactly like theirs because you aren’t confident in your own uniqueness or it’s not quite right, you’re stalling and also comparing your outer world to another’s outer show.

• If you constantly have repeating ideas you would like to start, and you are forever putting them on the back-burning, you’re stalling.

• If you’re always planning, analysing and never doing, you’re stalling.

• If you’re always looking outside for confirmation that you’re doing a good job, you’re stalling and need to work on your own self-worth.

• If you’re always talking about what you are going to do when … or one day maybe, you either don’t have strong goals or you’re stalling.

• If you’re persistently watching on the sidelines with something really valuable to say, but you never speak up, you’re stalling.

• If you arrive at a training course with the mindset you will never learn anything, you’re wasting your time and you’re stalling.

• If you read hundreds of blogs weekly and wish you could start one, you’re just wishing and stalling.

• If you’re constantly jumping on the next shiny new bandwagon for your business because you think you are missing out, you’re stalling.

• If you’re supposed to be marketing your business and you are watching cat videos on YouTube, you’re stalling.

• If you’re not happy in your significant relationship and you are scared to have difficult conversations that ultimately will help you grow (regardless of the outcome), you are stalling and probably building a bomb that will explode one day.

• If you’re sitting on a project that has your heart and soul behind it and will make a difference in lives of others and your worried about what those two people will say you met 10 years ago when they see you talk about on Facebook, you’re stalling and are bothered too much about what others think. (Hint: they don’t actually care! You probably aren’t that special to them.)

• If you’re meant to be writing an essay, article, piece of work and you’re putting in another load to the washing machine, you’re stalling.

• If you’re trying to cram one week of work into a day because you couldn’t be bothered the other 4 days, you’ve stalled.

It’s Not Quite Right

Yes, I know that stalling can have its roots based in fear. What am I saying? It’s usually always based in fear. It doesn’t matter what I say, if you’re stalling then you are the only person who can truthfully answer why you are doing it and for how long it will carry on.

I know that when we start new ideas, projects, creative endeavours and when we want to make transformations in our life we may stall because we look out into the world and because of our evaluation of ourselves we think that what we are doing isn’t as good as so and so, so what’s the point anyway? Then you have a self-esteem and confidence issue.

The one thing to know is your core values. Knowing who you are and what you stand for. Your values – personal, career and business – are the foundations of why you are doing what you doing. Feel right at home with those and everything will follow suit.

While you are stalling and flapping around with tiny details that aren’t quite right to you, to the rest of us they are fine. You are not only robbing yourself of your own sanity and confidence, you are also robbing the world of what you can create, do and be.

Stop stalling.

Do it or don’t.

Commitment is not the same as trying.

We are waiting on you.

Do the best you can with all that you have today. That’s all we want. And maybe that’s the perfect thing you can do for yourself? You can’t stall on that, can you?

If you have been living on the diet of ‘not quite right’ for a while ask yourself honestly, what have you lost and what have you gained?