Dear Friends in Scouting,
As per the request of my friend Marcelin Henri to prepare an editorial for the ICCS Newsletter, I found it hard from where to start, simply: How to …? This request pushed me to get back to searching in a treasure that I created few years ago, precisely in 2020. The treasure is all about how to do difficult things or to accomplish tasks beyond your reach or even for simpler reason you don’t feel like doing them in the first place: You get the sense of heaviness and accordingly you find refuge in procrastination that is postponement. That is why, here I am setting in front of you the whole thing with a bracket called “How To …? “ and How To is going to be our topic for today and for the future.
WHY HOW TO ?
Simply because of the enormous amount of data and information which are at the reach of our hands, all these data are mainly focusing on knowledge and information, ie focuses on what? In our daily life, we often seek How to do things: How succeed after failure… How to accept yourself and be happy … How to open your mind to new things. All these “HOWS “need an answer that will be based on personal experience of people who went through similar challenges, developed their own experience and expressed them to others. Only by getting exposed to their experiences can we face and confront our challenges differently. That is why the topic of today’s editorial is: How to be getting started when you don’t feel ready.
HOW TO: GETTING STARTED WHEN YOU DON’T FEEL READY
“Don’t wait for your feelings to change to take the action. Take the action and your feelings will change.” ~Barbara Baron
TAKE THE ACTION
How often do you stop yourself from doing something, waiting for something else to change before you move forward? You think you need to wait until you’re more prepared, knowledgeable, financially savvy, confident, secure (or insert excuse) to take the action. But then you never get to that place and never take the action. Then five years pass and you’re still talking about it, feeling “not ready yet.” Sound right?
Creating something from nothing is likely the scariest and most fear-provoking thing you’ll ever do. Accept that you will never feel ready enough. And start anyways. Take one single action at a time. Then take another. Then another.
KNOWING BY DOING… NOT ONLY LEARNING BY DOING
Learning by doing it is a pure scout methodology that has been there for decades. But here I am trying to show you something else about yourself: it’s knowing yourself and appreciating your capabilities by doing.
It’s easier if you know what you’re doing first. But what if there’s never that guarantee? What if the only way to find out is by doing it? What if the only way to gain confidence is to do the thing we or you’re not yet confident enough to do? What if the only way to gain knowledge is to jump in and find out what you need to learn and then learn the rest as you go?
FOLLOW YOUR INNER COMPASS
It’s like that game we played as kids. Someone hides something, and you go looking for it, waiting to hear “hotter” or “colder” or maybe even “boiling hot!” as you move. Those little pieces of guidance help you figure out whether you’re getting close or not.
The only way to find that item is to start looking, not ? You can sit around and plan, waiting for the stars to align just right. But you won’t get any feedback until you actually start moving and looking.
Your inner compass does the same. It will always give you feedback on what you need to know, what you need to do differently, what you need to do next—as long as you get out of your head and get moving.
GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE
You’re not one small person waiting to create big change. You’re a powerful person wanting to create small change. You have tremendous power to create in this world, but just like the energy vortex that exists behind an outlet, that power is useless until you plug it in.
Sign up for that class. Make the call. Face your taxes. Put up the scout website, even if it’s not perfect. Pay for the membership—just get on board. Have the difficult conversation. Place the ad. Send off the resume. Write the minutes and diffuse them, Go to that networking event… Just PLUG IT and START MOVING.
And remember you are not doing this for the outcome, although there will be an outcome. You are doing this because you are the creator in your life and you have decided that now is as good a time as any to jump in.
Remember, taking action alleviates anxiety.
Strive for progress.