,Me!
"Hmm, sounds intriguing. Let me think on it."
That was what I typed into my message screen in response to an associate who had a "great idea" that would be mutually beneficial and help to grow both of our small businesses. What was the idea? Simple enough. My associate, already an established entrepreneur, wanted to do a video interview with me for her website. I had already written numerous articles for her. This was going to be the start of what she hoped would be a regular series where we answer various questions that her site followers send her. I'd be able to plug my own business as part of the bargain, and my associate would help to raise awareness.
Doesn't sound hard, but I panicked inside at the thought. Panicked! Up to now, I've operated my tiny consulting business in my little corner of Texas. I've made plenty of public appearances, teaching workshops and classes in my area. I also do a lot of article writing. But the scale of these events were small, tiny even, compared to this. The idea of stepping in front of a camera and producing something that would be shown to tens of thousands of people all at once brought every insecurity to the front of my brain at blinding speed. "I'm too plump! Not pretty enough! Not expert enough! I'll sound dumb. People will hate it!" These are all of the thoughts that I assaulted myself with. Even though my slow-growing business could use a boost, and my much more experienced associate was offering to create an arrangement that could very well BE that needed boost, my first instinct was to hide. Find a way to say no, and stay in my safe little corner with my safe little business. I'm generally a shy person. I'm good at my job as a consulting herbalist (damn good), but having to go out and sell myself has been an agonizing process for me. My skin isn't naturally thick like born salespeople seem to be blessed with.
So I tried to give myself an out. I typed out a noncommittal response, one that put off decision making. I knew that once it reached a point where I had to say something, it would be all too easy to say how swamped I am, or some other polite version of "no." "Hmm, sounds intriguing. Let me think on it." That's neither yes nor no. Why, it's almost like saying nothing at all! No commitment. Perfect!
And then I realized that I had just spent the better part of an hour (the better part of my life if I'm going to be truly honest) beating the snot out of my own self-image. I hardly needed those tens of thousands of people to hate my face. Parts of me hated it for them. I beat myself up, and then worse, acted on the poisonous thoughts as if they were established facts. I was sabotaging myself, and so, my business as well. At my age (41) and knowing better, I was being my own worst enemy.
Once realization hit, I started thinking about how I could overcome this nasty, nasty cycle. I wasn't at all sure that I could get the thoughts to stop, not right away at any rate. If all it took to shed insecure thoughts was realizing that you had them, then we'd all be cured of them. There was one thing that came to mind, something that, ironically, I say often to my clients. When they tell me that they know what they have to do in order to achieve healing, but they just have to find the motivation, I tell them not to try looking. There is no motivation to be found outside of ourselves. The will to continue comes in the doing. You make a start, and the energy to continue follows.
It seemed to me that the only way to break the cycle was to actively choose to ignore the mean girl in me, and proceed with doing the very thing that terrified me. If I made a start and stopped giving myself a pass to flake out, then perhaps the courage to open myself up to these experiences way outside of my comfort zone would follow. It was worth a shot. So I backspaced through the message that I was about to send, and replaced it with,
"Sounds great! I'm in."
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