But you do.
This is a key component and determining factor in you stepping out of your comfort zone and doing that “stupid” thing. And please don’t berate me for saying that your idea is stupid. You said it first. Why do we almost always condemn our ideas before even trying them on for size?
Mainly because we don’t know if our idea will actually work and so we feel awkward and uncomfortable and yes…there’s that word again…stupid.
In his book ‘The Happiness of Pursuit’ bestselling author Chris Guillebeau talks about embracing rejection. “If you’re trying to do something new, you may feel uncomfortable with the idea of starting, or you may worry that your idea won’t be accepted by everyone. One way to “get over it” is to learn to become comfortable with failure.”
Jason Comely created a real life game called Rejection Therapy. Rejection Therapy is a personal experiment he devised in 2009. “I personally experimented with the concept for a year and released the game to the public in October 2010. You can think of it as game, but this game involves your life and the treasures are real.”
The five objectives of Rejection Therapy are:
- To be more aware of how irrational social fears control and restrict our lives
- Smash the tyranny of fear and reap the treasures (treasures include wealth, relationships and self-confidence)
- Learn from, and even enjoy rejection
- To not be attached to outcomes, especially when it involves the free agency of other people
- Permit yourself to fail
What qualifies as failure at Rejection Therapy? – You do nothing, and continue living the life you are now.
Jason suggests that when rejection feels like success is when we will start to win. The point here is to hardwire your brain to take action, to “go for it” as the default. It’s time to break those crippling and imprisoning patterns that are holding us back.
We need to give a completely different meaning to comfort. We need to ask ourselves what is it about comfort that we need to relearn. Isn’t being comfortable a good thing? Jason jars us into reality with his answer to that question. He says “Comfort is highly overrated for individuals who want to progress in life. Answer these questions as honestly as you can:
- Do you associate comfort with happiness?
- Is your daily routine “rigged” with compliance and efficiency?
- Would you rather be in familiar environments?
If you answered yes to these questions, your comfort zone may be more like a cage you can’t escape from, than a safe place you can retreat to. If you retreat to familiar settings as a default, and feelings of emptiness pervade your life, then comfort is what is holding you back.”
We need to start thinking of comfort as the enemy of our personal progress. Comfort is NOT our friend.
And we need to believe.
Our unspoken thoughts regarding our ideas are usually “I don’t believe that this will work for me” or I don’t believe I can make these ideas work. I don’t believe in myself.” Entrepreneur James Clear asked this question in his post ‘Believe in yourself and why nothing will work if you don’t’ – “Are you determined to fail?” He was responding directly to a reader who found every excuse under the sun to counter a couple of James’s suggestions for losing weight. “Why are you determined to make these ideas not work for you? Why are you searching for reasons why these ideas won’t succeed instead of figuring out a way to make something good happen?” James asked.
The biggest difference between successful people and unsuccessful ones (in health, in business, and in life) is that successful people are determined to make the situation work for them rather than playing the role of the victim and searching for reasons why a situation won’t work. “No idea will work for every person on the planet,” James shares, “but many ideas can work for most people … if you believe that you can make them work. You have to be willing to not just think differently, but to also to experiment with new ideas and trust that you’ll discover a way to make them work.”
Most of us are amateurs when we first start anything but being an amateur gives us a solid advantage. We can learn so much if we stay open to possibilities and keep our curiosity level high. There is much wisdom in the quote “It’s the strong swimmers who drown.” Why? Because strong swimmers are usually overconfident and over estimate their own ability to manage the demands of their environment while underestimating the conditions – waves, currents, weather change etc. They also sometimes lack the skill to tackle the unexpected. In other words it takes much more than mere talent to guarantee your success.
What you need to do is build up on your resilience by understanding yourself , knowing what you DO have, and then committing daily to using those strengths in the pursuit of your idea.
You have to believe that you can reach your goals. You have to believe that you can make things happen in your business and life. You have to believe that you have everything you need right now to take just one step forward. The rest will take of itself once you keep on moving.
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