You have made the dedication to start a business or you are going to be more outgoing. Then again you may have just gone through a divorce. And you are trying to decide what you are going to do next. You are then hit with your first big obstacle. Why isn’t this as easy as people make it seem? Are you just not good at this? Why do some people make what you are trying to do look so easy, while other people struggle? Isn’t starting a new business supposed to be easy?
First, you have to understand that nothing worth doing is easy. The scarier it appears to you that there is a good chance that you are on the right path. Yet why isn’t it easy?
Why is it so difficult?
The reasons why doing something new or getting back in the saddle of something you haven’t done in a long while are numerous. Those reasons vary depending on the thoughts you have about the whole situation. Yet each of those specific reasons can be reduced to some more general experiences you are having.
Discomfort of discomfort
The number one reason that doing anything new, is that we have an aversion to being uncomfortable. It sounds horrible I get it. We would rather be comfortable and discomfort sounds miserable. Yeah, it does suck being uncomfortable but discomfort as a whole will not hurt you.
We experience discomfort from just interacting with other people. Our monkey brain doesn’t want us to be excluded from the tribe because being expelled from the tribe means we become bear food. Yet these days that isn’t the case at all If you find a group of people who don’t agree with you, you can often turn to the right and find people who are agreeing with your sentiment.
When trying something new the fear of discomfort may arise as those nagging little excuses you get popping up in your mind. Those excuses are your primitive scaredy-cat brain attempting to convince you that doing that thing will not work and that it is better that you just sit down on the couch, turn on the Television and be comfortable. If you do that nothing will happen to you and they are correct nothing will happen. Nothing bad nor will anything good.
You don’t know what is going to happen!
The unknown, that is such a scary yet exhilarating opportunity. You could find out that jumping out of a plane could end in you going splat, or could be a life-changing safe touch down on mother terra. Are you going to die? Maybe you are going to lose everything you own. Perhaps you will be seen as a laughing stock of your city or worse the country.
Do you know for a fact? Are you sure or is that just a thought going on in your head? Humans are notorious for making predictions that don’t happen. How many times has the world supposedly supposed to end, yet here we are still going strong. I think the last one was 15 years ago we were supposed to have flaming icebergs due to global warming yet, nope here we are and we still have water in the same places and yeah people are still predicting that the world will end. You can imagine the worst yet that worst will not happen. Mark Twain famously said
I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which happened.
Mark Twain
In other words, we worry way too much about what horrible things are going to happen if we pursue our dream or personal business. When in all reality those horrible things rarely happen the way we see them.
Then there is the ancient Seneca who stated
We suffer more in our imagination than our reality
Seneca
This again is because we fear what our mind tells us. It is safer to be in the house watching Netflix on the couch. Why risk your respect by doing something that you have never done before? Well because the payoff is freedom and confidence in our abilities.
Your programing
How many times have you said I can’t. Maybe you claimed that you don’t have enough money or that you struggle to fit in. Have you ever said that you are stupid or bad at math or fall asleep while reading? Those stories you tell yourself is you, programming your brain on how to think
Your brain is a computer. The programming of that computer is the ultimate learning computer. You can change the programming that you have told yourself for years. Now that programming isn’t instantaneous. Yet if you are willing to work on it you can change your programming and become whatever it is that you wish to be.
Do you wish to be able to turn your wife on at the drop of a hat? Then Stop telling yourself that you don’t know how to be romantic. Stop telling yourself that she would rather be with someone else.
Your brain picks up all those little cues and its sole purpose is to make those words a reality. Your brain doesn’t like lies. So when you say you can’t talk to women it’s going to make that thought a reality. So change your words and change your life.
You are looking at what you don’t have.
There is a mindset that will strip you of all the opportunities that lay before you. This mindset will keep you small and scared. It will take all that money you have and make it disappear. What mindset is that you ask? It is the scarcity mindset.
Many times you may have 10 different avenues you could choose to go down but yet you don’t choose the easy one. Why? Because you don’t see it as a viable option. Because of your programming and past lies that you and others have told yourself you see an easy street and you veer away from it because it is too good to be true. That little pesky scarcity mindset is a paper wall you are afraid to break.
Look at poor people. They see nothing but obstacles in their way if they try to get out of their current situation. Yet with a little effort, you can climb the pay scale and become rich. That is one of the glorious parts of this country you live in. Yet why do so many not want to climb out? Because they see their friends who are stuck in the mire of poverty, they have been told they can’t get out, They have been told the only way to get out of their neighborhood is to get government handouts.
They are given a large sum of money at times and instead of using it to help get out of their predicament, they use it to buy luxury items. They blow that cash fast. That is the scarcity mindset at work. If they don’t spend it now they won’t have the money to buy what they want later.
Looking to your past
How many times have you approached something new and the first thing you told yourself is, I have never done this? This is my first time. Have you said anything like that? IF you are like me then you have and that is you looking to the past instead of looking to the future.
You become what you think of. And if you are thinking you are a small-town hick who has never run a business before you are going to act just like that small-town hick. Yet if you are willing to visualize yourself as a successful mogul of whatever industry you like. Your brain will work to make that thought a reality.
You haven’t earned it yet
This is probably the hardest for people to understand. Why is the path you are on so tough? Maybe because you tried to skip a few steps. Therefore you are on a level you haven’t earned yet.
Yes, skill and mindset are much like a business. You can’t get something for free. You have to work your butt off for you to earn the ability to get to the next level. You won’t get any higher or if you do and you haven’t earned the right to be at that level you will self-sabotage yourself and you will backslide.
So who is the one who determines if you are good enough? That would be the man you are looking at when you are shaving. It is up to you to determine whether you deserve the next level or not. It is up to you and you alone. The only way you can prove to yourself that you can do it is by doing the work. You can’t take a shortcut. You have to walk every mile and learn every lesson.
How you look at any situation is your choice. Now some may think that they don’t have a choice and yet that is their choice, and I am not wanting to I don’t want to take a person’s choice away but add more. So, know that you don’t have to look at an obstacle as being hard, you can look at it as whatever you chose.
So who says that life is easy? Who says that doesn’t know what they are talking about. The person who thinks even the rich have it easy doesn’t know what they are talking about. The only person who is in control of you is you and you now have an idea as to how to get your business or dream or idea or family moving on the right path. It all depends on you and what you are willing to do. Are you going to get uncomfortable and do the work? If not there is the couch and the remote but stop complaining that you are not going anywhere because you chose to sit there.
