No matter where you are in life, just start where you are. It doesn’t matter what you are hoping to accomplish, but if you have been waiting for the right time to start a business, start your own podcast, start a blog, start a fitness routine, start a new habit or hobby – whatever it is, start right now. How many of you think it is too late to start something new? How many of you think you just don’t have time? Or how many of you have put some of your goals, dreams or to-dos on the shelf and really have no intention of dusting them off and working on them?
I too, have put so many things on the shelf for so many years. I have been super busy with life, with having 3 children, with my social activities, with keeping up the house and chores, with my faith, helping others, waiting until I made more money, and the list goes on and on. But what I have found is that I just have a laundry list of excuses that really don’t matter. I mean, they do matter a little bit, but in the grand scheme of life I have chosen to wait to take action on these things for various reason so I can only blame myself if they don’t ever progress.
Where do we start though. How do we start where you are? You can Google key words like motivation and procrastination and you can find a zillion amazing videos on these topics from TedTalks to inspirational celebrities to ordinary people who broke the chains of their current stations through hard work. But for me, I can give you some pointers on what I used to overcome waiting on your dreams.
#1 Don’t wait for perfection. In a previous episode I talked about taking imperfect action and because of this mindset shift, I have been progressing with things that I’d normally have an excuse to leave it where it is. I love when everything is perfect, when I’m a true expert on the subject before I start, I have all of my ducks in a row, I have the master plan crafted and I don’t even start until all of these things are in place. But look at this podcast, I’m on episode #9 because I just started. I had no idea what I was going to talk about – I didn’t know what the strategy was going to be – I had never ever even done a podcast. Here I am progressing and I’m getting my message out there, even if it is just my thoughts and notes here in the beginning. But soon, I’ll be talking about strategies I’m using to get me to where I want to be and that is helping myself and others make online passive income.
#2 Get comfortable with the uncomfortable. There is one thing that I know for sure is that we all tend to live within our comfort zones. We have a ton of excuses to why we don’t ever step outside of our comfort zone and into uncomfortable situations where we may actually grow, learn or transform. What is every funnier to me, is that the off chances that we do step outside our comfort zone and into new opportunities, we don’t regret that we did. And once these new opportunities become comfortable, we grow in our skill set or have a new adventure to add to our list. I often get people who assume that I am not afraid of anything, that I am not shy at all, that I am driven and go after my dreams, that I make friends easily and that I could speak in front of an audience. The truth is, I am actually pretty shy when it comes down to it… Sure I love meeting people and I look like I can just approach a person and start a conversation, but my hands are super sweaty, my heart is pumping and I get this little voice in my head saying ‘Oh Lord, what am I doing, will they like me, what if they think I’m stupid, what if I stumble over my words’. So I have learned from others that if you exude confidence, that it hides shyness and people are attracted to confident people. I go with the “fake it until you make it” sort of mantra in these situations and I put myself in uncomfortable situations. Many times I have been shut down, but the one time someone makes me feel welcome makes it all worth while. Being a transplant and moving around a lot on top of being bi-racial made it hard for me to confident in my own skin. I had to learn to get comfortable with the uncomfortable even when I don’t want to. I have always had a wealth of friends, mainly because I’ve chosen to step into situations and put myself out there. I’m nervous to do so, but happy that I did after the fact. I realized that having a wealth of friends is not as great as having a handful of hard core, close knit, best of the best, drama free friends and I’ve honed in on who those people are. It has been nothing short of amazing with this group. But truth be told, if you ask some of these girls how we became friends, most of them would tell you that they didn’t like me at first. There were circumstances that made them think I was not someone they wanted to be friends with, but guess what I did – I fought for these relationships. I recognized that they are they type of people who I want to spend my spare time with, they are the girls who I want to emulate, they are the type of girls who I knew would have my back and never bring drama to our fun-filled adventures. I fought by putting myself in the uncomfortable and proving to them that there is more there than they had originally thought. Over time, years in fact, we have too many adventures to count and I’m thankful for every minute I get to spend with these amazing ladies. It was worth the discomfort in the beginning. People also think that I would have no problem getting up and talking in front of people. And wow are they wrong. Just thinking about it makes me cringe. However, I know that soon I will need to get comfortable with the uncomfortable with the possibility of my having to speak in front of audiences. I want to coach people on how to start online business and this means presenting. I have presented in corporate life and I did pretty well, but that doesn’t mean I was comfortable with it. I get nervous at meetings where we have just introduce ourselves and say what we do. Yep, if you are a close friend or acquaintance of mine, you are probably shocked to hear that, but it is true. I actually get really nervous… however, I have embraced that this journey I’m talking you guys on is going to bring about a ton of uncomfortable situations and I’m ready to work on getting comfortable with them. How many of you are willing to speak in front of others? How many think it would be too uncomfortable? Many of us hide behind our excuses – I’m too shy, I’m not knowledgeable enough, I don’t have anything to provide and we are all wrong. If you start where you are – you would be surprised to the wealth of information you have in your mind that could help others. It could be a hobby, an experience, a skill and so much more. So yes, I am afraid of a lot of things, but a tactic for me is to think about my why… why am I willing to do things I’m afraid of.
And that brings me to #3 Let your why drive you. We all have a reason to why we want to learn new things and why we want to start new adventures. Some can be personal based to further one’s own career or make more money to buy more toys. There is nothing wrong with these, but some people have a why that includes others. For me, it is people. First – my family. I have a husband, 3 children, lots of nieces, nephews, siblings, parents, grandparents and more. I want to ensure that my children have what they need in life. Some things that I didn’t have growing up. Things that will set them up for success as adults. Don’t you want this for your family too? Or perhaps, like me, you want to leave a legacy for your children. I’ve expressed many goals already that have to do with the coming year for my business, but I also think it would be really neat if I can also create a course to help parents and their tweens set up their own online passive income streams. I mean, have you heard about the highest paid YouTube last year named Ryan, a 7 year old who has made $22 million playing with toys on YouTube? Wow, right? But my why transcends beyond my family. I keep mentioning how I’ve had this inner voice telling me I’m meant for more. I know I can start and grow a profitable online business and this podcast is my journal of how I’m going to get there.
#4 Change your mindset. No matter what age you are, you have a mindset that you’ve been wearing around for years, one that you have settled into believing that this is the best your life can get. However, if you took a minute and took a step outside that mindset, you may discover other mindsets that may suit you, ones that could grow on you. What does this look like? Think about it like this, I had settled for the corporate career for almost 20 years now and I have had the mindset that this is the best that I can do. However, over the past couple years, I have been toying around with the idea of putting on the online entrepreneur mindset and it has been life changing. I have discovered that people who are making millions online where just like you and me once upon a time. They were ordinary people just like us working corporate jobs or working in a job that they had settled for. They too, had to transform their mindset a bit in order to open their mind to the possibilities. Depending on what you want to do with your life, aside from settling in and being content, you need to adapt your mindset to the one you want to be. Meaning, you have to start to wear the mindset of the ideal you that you hope to be one day. Only then you can get closer to that goal. So if you want to be a pastry chef, but are working as a personal training – nothing will change at all if you just settle for the mindset that being a personal training is the best you can do. Instead, you have to look at those who are pastryChefs and put on that mindset. The mindset that they had to start somewhere, they probably didn’t have a clue when they started out and they probably didn’t have the tools to follow their dreams. But their mindset told them that they had to start where they are and go after it day by day. Some took classes, some just started baking, some started a blog of their favorite recipes, some created videos of them making pastries and some took out loans and opened up a bakery. No matter what they did, they focused on the mindset that they had to take daily steps towards who they wanted to be.
So start where you are. No dream is too big or too small either – just think about what actions are necessary to start down the path to getting to where you want to be. Don’t give up and again, no one ever said it was going to be easy, but use hard work to fuel your journey.