That’s what happens to me when my enthusiasm gets me started planning long-term down the road and then I’m so daunted by how big a project it will be that I can’t get myself to keep moving.
Most recently I did this to myself about blogging. That’s when I realized the molehill/mountain metaphor applies very well!
When what was a little kernel of an idea (molehill) evolves into a mountain and then if you’re like me, you find yourself wanting to just sit in a hut at the bottom and hope that nobody catches you hiding.
It’s interesting, at least to me, how long this blogging idea has needed to percolate before it could actually start to move. For the past few years I told myself “if you write one thing a week for a year, you can have a backlog to get you through dry spells/crazy work patches etc…and every time I had that conversation with myself I totally agreed “marvelous idea” and didn’t do much with. Definitely one challenge is I am the most energized for all of this in the morning, and Monday-Friday I have to go to work; Saturday I’m riding (and I’m ferociously protective of that time). That leaves Sunday – when I have to do all the other stuff I’ve avoided or not had time for all week. So, the blog would get back-burner-ed and I’d continue having amazing ideas that were abandoned by Sunday.
As someone who has been casually studying “how to fix myself” for years (possibly since birth???) I know that all the “experts” say, “just take one small step, then let the rest flow from there” – or something like that, I’ve blended and paraphrased.
With that in mind I recently took a day that the office was closed and no one else was around and I wrote a post. That was kind of fun! So I picked another day and set aside time to write some more, yay, still fun! Then I thought, okay, if I really want to maybe do this, I need to actually put myself out there so I made myself the 10 post promise/rule and published (everything until then I’d been saving as draft 🙂 ). That was fun too, somewhat scary, but fun. I was busy building little molehills…then I started reading what it would take if I ever wanted this to maybe be a business…WHAM! mountain.
Did you know the Huffington post publishes something like every 53 seconds!!!! Okay, granted, not chasing that but still, daunting. Another post I read said that to keep readers interested and engaged you needed to post 3 times a week…even that is pretty daunting. Remember, it’s taken a few years to get 10 posts!
After freaking myself out, and getting convinced that this was a silly waste of time, I dipped back into the little pile of nuggets I’ve been gathering and was reminded of a tool from the book Crucial Conversations – what’s the story I’m telling myself. Granted Crucial Conversations is looking at another aspect of our self-talk, how we are perceiving a difference of opinion that may lead to a tough conversation, but the premise applies.
The mountain had materialized because I was telling myself that I had to do it all, RIGHT NOW. And that’s not actually true, that was just the story.
So, after a few days of noodling, the following weekend I went to my well of “drafts”, pulled one up and wrote about that topic…honestly that one has yet to really inspire me, I keep relegating it to the back burner, but it unlocked me because after that one, I wrote another one. And today, I wrote a couple more.
I’m going to keep chipping away at this mountain, and several others I’ve let materialize, and try to remember to revel in the journey. We get so busy climbing that we either get overwhelmed and stop, or we never pause to look back at the valley. When you do that you are reminded of what you’ve already accomplished, and why this mountain can be scaled as well.
What’s your mountain? What can you do to take a small step? Would love to hear from you and cheer you on!