The best time to raise a concern about something is not the moment you realize there is a concern.
At that time, the concern is instinctual, raw, primitive.
Stay with it for a while. Elaborate it, write it down, think about it. And after some time has passed, if the concern is still there with you, go ahead and express it in the best possible form.
It’s never easy. It’s just worth it.
Whatever your stressor is, make the effort to confine it.
If it is work, shut it down with your laptop.
If it is family, leave it at home when you go for a walk.
If it is the news, gift yourself time when you are free of them.
One way or the other, don’t let the stressor creep into your spaces of restoration and regeneration. Little by little, the stressor will shrink and often, eventually, even go away.
Building solid boundaries is a responsibility.
The way you behave with people is at least as important as the words you speak.
The story you tell is at least as important as the subject you are narrating.
The marketing you deliver is at least as important as the product you have come up with.
The point is, there is appearance and there is substance. Pretending one does not exist just because it makes you uncomfortable is heavily limiting your own possibilities to succeed.
Make the effort to align them instead. Make behavior and words, story and subject, marketing and product go hand in hand. Bring one at the same level of the other. Make them support each other and be in harmony.
That’s when the feeling of uneasiness will just go away.
Take a complex project. Break it down into smaller parts. Put those parts on a calendar, while being reasonable about the time and effort each one will take. Start doing and go back to the calendar often to keep things on track.
Complexity will look a lot less scary.
It is the fantasizing, the preoccupation, the chaos, the distractions that get in the way of delivering.
Get back ownership of your capability to deliver.
A difficult step towards awareness is appreciating that we are not so special after all.
The things we think, the emotions we feel, the fears that get us stuck, the ambitions that drive us, the confusion in the face of uncertainty, the defensiveness when we fail. They are common to many and they do not make us any different from all others human beings.
Once we are fine with that, then we can dedicate time to what truly matters: how we react to all that and to an ever-changing world.
That’s where the biggest difference is.
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