Hughs Blog

What's holding you back and having a bias for action.

I just finished the final draft of my new ebook “ReClaiming the Clock”. After a final push of about 10 hours over the weekend I feel comfortable enough to let an editor have at it.  I actually wrote the first draft of this book in the Spring of 2008 and it’s taken one year to get to the place where I’m comfortable sending it off. In fact, I had even selected an editor late last year and backed out.

Now that I have gone this next step I’m wondering what took me so long? Finishing the final draft wasn’t really that hard, nor did it take that much time, yet something was holding me back. Was it insecurity about having my name put on a book (even though this was really only intended to be an ebook)? Or was it a fear of reader rejection?

What are the times in your life when you had everything you needed to do something new and you didn’t do it, like: bungy jumping, applying for that new job, joining the gym for the first time, asking that wonderful person for a date? What held you back? More importantly, what was different on those occasions when you didn’t hesitate and you went for it?

Given that we know that some 90% of our behaviour is led by our beliefs, it’s a good bet that what we believed about ourselves, our abilities, or our chances of success was a huge determinate in our actions.

So what are the beliefs you have about yourself that need to go out with the garbage this week? Do you believe that you aren’t good enough, don’t have the time, have a habit of always ______________ (you fill in the blank)?

A great remedy for bummer beliefs is to take action in the direction of your desires. Psychologists tell us that we always regret more the action that we don’t take over the ones we took that didn’t work out well.

This week take action: do something that you would normally hesitate to do or wouldn’t do at all. Take action, without a guarantee, to follow your desires. This is the breakfast of champions!
Even if you don’t get what you asked for, you still learn more about what you are capable of. As the Great One, Wayne Gretsky, once famously predicted “you will miss 100% of the shots you don’t take!”

Tags: culver

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