Believe it, act like you believe it, or stop pretending

My thoughts today aren’t so warm and fuzzy.  Only because I haven’t been gentle on myself today and I thought you might like a glimpse of how I coach myself.

In order to progress to the ‘next level’ we often have to “act in the absence of knowing the outcome” and I use the word “knowing” loosely.  So far as I can tell, this is also called Faith.  Every time you are faced with the potential to undergo substantial growth in a short period of time, you have to weigh up the cost of taking that action without knowing the outcome.  You have to suspend your disbelief.

And we humans aren’t that smart at the best of times, and so we don’t weigh up the ‘true cost’ we weigh up the ‘perceived cost’.  And that ‘perceived cost’ can put a chill down your spine and a sinking feeling in your gut.

But, here you are – at the point of decision.  Are you going to do it – or are you going to back down from the challenge.

I have been working pretty hard on myself of late – and I aint backing down.  And every time I get that sinking feeling or those nagging thoughts of self-doubt I don’t have to make decision to keep on going because I have already made the decision to keep on going.

The way I see it, if I want to do something and I think about it all the time and I tell other people it’s what I’m going to do – but then when it comes to actually doing it I stumble and procrastinate and excuse myself from action – then basically it means I either don’t believe it will be successful or I don’t really want it.  The way I see it, there is no middle ground.  I am either going to do it or not.  And if I’m going to do it then I need to either believe it or act as if I believe in it.

It’s like bungee jumping – you can’t half do it.  You either step off or not.

Conversely, if you’re not going to do it, then save yourself and everyone around you from the boring “chronic contemplation syndrome”.  Just stop pretending you’re going to do X, Y or Z and move onto something else.  This is not a cop out, but a powerful strategy.  Admitting you don’t really want to do something enables you to back out and re-direct all that energy and time into something that you ARE going to do.

In all my work in health care – and now after having spoken to hundreds and hundreds of people at seminars – this issue keeps cropping up: people say they want something, but do not act as if they want it.  And to me that’s just plain boring.  Why do they waste their time – and everyone elses – ‘pretending’ that they’re going to do something when in actuality they are not.

Many of us are lucky enough to live in a country where the risk of doing something new – of trying something out – is pretty low.  What’s the worst that could happen?  Failure?  Big deal.

Believe in what you do.  If you don’t know for sure that it will all work out, then act as if you believe it anyway.  Otherwise, do yourself – and everyone else a favor – and stop pretending you’re going to do it.

So, where does this tie into my story?  Today I continued to take steps in the direction I want to move in – despite the uncertainty – despite the risk of failure.

Reflecting on this post, it is an easy target for the cynical and skeptical.  It sounds cliched.  Hyped.  I don’t care.  I’m no motivational speaker or life coach.  I don’t have fancy techniques and strategies or life manuals. I have had a unique opportunity to observe thousands of people who are ‘not getting stuff done’ – and I’m just keeping myself on target and refusing to take any crap from my own mind.

Since writing this post, I came across another post by David Bullock which I thought was a perfect match for this.  In his post, he included this video of a TED talk about what makes success.