Do you have a habit of starting new projects, or businesses, and then giving up the first time you get stuck?
It’s like when you were a kid, and you first rode your bicycle down a huge hill. You’d stop pedaling and coast, and then when the next hill came up, if you didn’t start pedaling soon enough, you’d start huffing and puffing.
Perhaps you were standing up to pedal. If you were me, you might have had a serious fear that your bicycle would just start rolling backwards and you’d die a horrible death rolling backwards through an intersection.
No? Just me?
The point is, you shouldn’t be fooled by that initial ease. You’ll get up that first hill on sheer enthusiasm, but the second hill will always be harder (“You mean I have to do MORE work?!?”)
It’s a long way down, kid…
After that first hill of "Wheeeeeeeee!" you find yourself mired in what the Kelly and Connor Emotional Cycle of Change calls "informed pessimism," aka The Valley of Despair.
It's at this point that you give up learning the violin, practicing your tennis swing, or building your voiceover business, because all of a sudden the real work has begun. And it's HARD.
By the second hill, you’ll be a little more tired, less enthused, and a bit further from your comfort zone.
“I think I’ll just quit. INSERT GOAL HERE is just too hard. You know what? I’ve always wanted to pursue INSERT DISTRACTION GOAL HERE. I know I’m going to be amazing at that, and in just a few months, I’m going to be INSERT PIPE DREAM HERE!”
You think the next project will be easier? Think again, my friend!
Ideas are everywhere. But can you make any of them a reality?
With every new project, the cycle will begin anew. You’ll get an idea. A BRILLIANT IDEA! The one thing that will finally make you rich, or fit, or happy…
Except it won’t.
Why? To quote Breakfast at Tiffany’s “because everywhere you go, you just keep running into yourself.”
The solution is not a new passion. The only way to get out of this destructive pattern of behavior is to learn when to start pedaling. HARD.
Empowerment comes from doing things that push you out of your comfort zone, realizing that you are capable, and then doing it again. And again. And again.
While you’re coasting on your enthusiasm, learn to start pedaling before you think you need to. And keep pedaling until the top of the next hill, even if you sometimes feel like you are in danger of sliding backwards.
Slow progress is still progress.
The journey of a thousand miles might start with a single step, but it’s only completed if you keep taking more steps
Want to know more about the Kelly and Connor Emotional Cycle of Change? Click here.