Asking For It

I would love to, but I can't. I'm too [insert negative excuse here].

Scared. Broke. Not talented enough. Uneducated. Unmotivated. My idea won't work. I don't know how to do that.

Unmotivated? Ask for help from your support system. Don't know how to do it? Learn. Broke? Work hard at something you might not have a passion for first to create a nest-egg to invest in your true path. Not talented? Where is the proof aside from your own Negative Nancy-pants attitude? If you've never tried to make a go of something, how can you be sure it won't work out? 

Aren't you getting a little tired of the deprecating excuses we keep feeding ourselves? I have been guilty of this for years. Where do we learn it from? As children, we are fearless. We haven’t yet learned that not believing we can accomplish something is even an option. We march forward with purpose knowing with certainty that if we jump off the roof with a cape we will certainly fly!

I have a wonderful man in my life who generously brought me into his business. So often I get "It must be hard working with your spouse." It's not, he is awesome and I admire him; seriously, I could spend all day every day with him. What is hard for me is that the businesses he is interested in aren't my passions. He came to me months ago after I expressed some displeasure with my work and had all kinds of options for me, including him supporting our household financially if I wanted to try writing full-time. This all started to come out right before his busiest time of year, and I felt like it would be ungrateful and rash of me to drop out in the eleventh hour. But I also think I used it as another excuse. "He needs/wants me here, he is my partner, I should stay." Even when he handed me the ticket to see if the direction I wanted to take my career was what I really wanted, I still talked him and myself out of taking it. Months have gone by, busy season isn't over but is winding down a little, and I still feel the same. Now that opportunity to be brave and say yes is staring me right in the face, with all my excuses lying flaccidly beside me. Even if I stayed to genuinely be a good partner and help him succeed, it has never really been about him, it's been about me and my fears. (If you haven't heard me say it lately, don't worry, I know I am blessed with an awesome life partner and I do not take that for granted!) The business cards are printed, the stage is set. Time to step out onto that ledge alone and really put some faith in my abilities. Time to ask of myself and of life what for what I really want and make it happen. Time to be stronger than my worst fears and best excuses. It’s not going to be easy, but it is going to be mine.

In the same line of thought, I find a myth that we need to expel is that success happens overnight. I had an old boss who I did a co-op work term with who once told me there were tons of candidates he interviewed for my role who seemed to think that just rolling out of University with an Undergraduate degree would mean they qualified to be in superior roles. Think again my friends. I had another Professor once tell me that if I wanted to do my MBA (Masters of Business Administration) that I absolutely needed to go out into the workforce because degree or not, I didn’t know anything about really running a business yet. I know people, close friends and family included, who took the entrepreneurial route from the start. Sure, I may have a $60,000 piece of paper and know more acronyms, but on many levels, they have learned what I did from a textbook from real life experience. They worked hard at it for years, and created success for themselves by building a brand, a reputation, a company. They made mistakes, they had shortfalls, and they stuck at it. You don't put in for overtime when you are the only one on the payroll, but you do get to reap the benefits of pouring your blood, sweat, and tears into something you can call your own.

I haven't had to shed too many crimson droplets yet, but there certainly are days when I am staring at my screen begging my brain to leak forth a decent article's worth of inspiration.  As much as it is putting words on paper, writing can be a lot of staring off into space looking like you aren't accomplishing anything. Writing is hard to force. Sometimes you just need to take your time, which is tough to do when you have commitments to meet.

I am scared that the days I work from home I will get lazy, or distracted. That when I get writer's block, even though I have a deadline, doing laundry will suddenly become more important than finishing my articles. I am worried that I won’t find enough enjoyable work to keep me busy and I won’t be contributing to my household in the way I want to.  But I have to try. "I might fail" and "I won't be disciplined enough" can't be my reasons to stop myself anymore. In the grand scheme of people taking risks, I am in a pretty safe environment to do so. If this was swimming, I would have been standing up to just past my ankles for the past year. I am ready to at least submerge my knees, maybe even a little higher. Hopefully soon, I will convince myself to dive deep and really start to swim strong. 

I have jumped out of an airplane at 13,000ft and this is way scarier. Here it goes.