There was a young boy in elementary school who was one of the brightest pupils academically.
As a reward for his intelligence,
When it came to casting the school nativity play,
He was given the role of Joseph,
Who had the most lines.
At the first rehearsal,
The teacher discovered that she'd made a bit of a mistake.
No coaching was given,
And the boy was given a less challenging part as one of the innkeepers.
All he had to say once was,
He was a quivering wreck doing even this,
And as a result ended up as an angel on the back row of the chorus without any wings.
When he grew up,
It took the boy until he was 45 before he was comfortable with public speaking.
He would avoid speaking engagements and only present if someone else was on stage with him taking the lead.
You may have guessed by now who that boy is.
There are four fears that surface regularly that result in procrastination and the emergence of avoidance strategies.
They are the fear of ridicule,
The fear of failure,
The fear of the unknown and the fear of success.
The first three of these were what that boy suffered from in the nativity play.
Later in life,
That boy had been financially quite successful twice when he built and sold two companies.
In both cases,
He'd been the most stressed out he'd ever been to.
As a result,
Unconsciously he'd linked success and stress together.
It was only in his mid-forties when he got over the first three fears that the other fear emerged as a residual issue.
Like an onion,
We peel one fear away only to find other sources of procrastination lurking.
So breathe in,
And breathe down.
Often,
There are a mix of these procrastination-inducing fears in operation,
Resulting in poor time management.
The only way to get over them is to learn how to express ourselves creatively in a form where we don't feel so threatened.
So I found writing and podcasting much less fear-inducing than public speaking.
As my confidence grew,
I came out of hiding and have presented to huge audiences now.
So make an appointment with your creative self each week,
Book it in your diary,
And guard it fiercely.
Take baby steps forward shining your light,
And all in good time,
You'll find the fears that mash your talent drop away,
And you'll get things done much more easily and much more quickly.
