Now is the time

Recently I have been writing about making decisions and choices, the challenge of doing so, trusting ourselves to make the right choices.

So what happens next?  What happens now?

Think about the decision or choice you are making.  Are you hesitant, nervous about it?  Are you edging towards the new with fear and trepidation?  Or, are you boldly stepping out?  With determination and focus towards your new direction of travel!

It makes a difference – this setting out.

If we start out unsure of whether we are doing the right thing, worried about the slightest thing that might go wrong, or nervous that we will fail anyway, this can be like setting ourselves up for a fall – a self-fulfilling prophecy.  It’s right that we get nervous about doing new things.  This is what protects us from ourselves!  But we humans are more capable and resilient than we think.  We certainly don’t need the same level of protection as we did when we were cave dwellers.  The fight or flight reactions we have to things are a bit excessive in relation to the threats and risks we are now faced with, but they are still within us: our safety nets.

If we are lucky, we feel confident about our next steps, even if we haven’t done anything like them before, and instead of recognising anxiety we feel excitement about what we are about to do: jump out of a plane, launch a business, dive into a new subject/course.

Our brain recognises the symptoms of anxiety and excitement as the same thing, the are both states of arousal.  The body prepares itself for action, pumping cortisol, and the heart beats a little faster.  This means that we can trick our minds with words, by changing the phrases we use to prepare ourselves for the next event: instead of saying to ourselves “I’m anxious about this”, say “I’m excited” and see what happens.  I used this trick myself for my recent SkyDive and it worked a treat – I was so excited!

So boldly step towards your decisions. Be determined, focus on the end goal.  Remember that change is almost always hard.  To get to where you want to be you will likely have to leave something behind: you can’t carry all the baggage with you!  Everything is temporary anyway, so if you feel like shit, remember it will pass!

Do it though, do it now.  Now is the time.