My clunker of a washing machine has been on it’s last leg for months, and I was dreading buying a new one. Now normally when I SEE a crisis in the making, I do my best to side step the incident with preparation and planning. After all, I ‘m a all about being PROactive and not REactive. But nope, not this time. I was not at all looking forward to spending grueling hours at the appliance store and online trying to find the perfect machine to clean my towels, tank tops and trousers! Shux, I had much better things to do with my time, like pay some much needed attention to my neglected DVR!
Welp, needless to say when the old washer finally kicked the bucket, I was left in a lurch. I wanted to kick myself for not being more diligent about looking sooner. I was angry with myself for not carving out just a little more time to think through my purchase. As I sat in front of “Big Chain Appliances” (name has been changed to protect the innocent), I asked myself why I had procrastinated? Between the shopping, purchase, delivery and installation, I was going to spend the next 2 days doing EXACTLY what I had not wanted to do, and it took up more time than it would have initially. And I lost a ton of time on a big project to boot.
Here’s another example. I had a client that I urged to do more videos to position her expertise better. She gave me all kinds of reasons why she never got around to it. When we finally got to the meat of the excuses, she just didn’t feel “comfortable” enough. And although I tried diligently to explain that practice would make her more comfortable, she continued to avoid doing videos.
A year later she was approached by a TV producer about being an on-air expert. The first question she was asked is “do you have more videos?” The producer needed to sell her to the network as a expert without incurring new production costs. Needless to say, the producer moved on to another potential talent that had a slew of videos floating around the internet. BAM!
How many times have you gotten edgy or or nervous about a new thing, so you avoided doing it? Or simply side-stepping another thing because it took too much focus? And how many times did those things come back to bite you in a BIG way? Welp, you know I’m always here to help! Let’s dig in with the 3 ways avoidance is holding you back!
- Your Reputation: You may not realize it, but avoiding certain situations or activities looks usually doesn’t have a favorable appeal to those on the outside looking in. You tend to look like a procrastinator or a slacker, neither of those are a good look for an aspiring brand builder.
- Empowers Fear: If you are avoiding something because of fear, you are simply giving that fear power over your divine destiny. In other words fear is making you her b*tch! That can’t be a good thing, right?!
- You Miss Out: Opportunity does not wear a watch. It has no sense of time and it won’t wait until you are perfectly ready! So you simply never want to miss the a life-changing opportunity because you avoided doing the prep work.
- BONUS: Right after I did this blog post, I decided to do a video on Periscope, in that video I dropped a bonus tip. You can check it out here.
Well right about now, I usually come up with some whitty quip to close with… but errrr, I got nothing today. So on that note, I’m going to just bounce!
- Should You Brand Yourself or Your Company? - June 9, 2020
- Dear White People - May 31, 2020
- Brand Your Zoom Background - March 29, 2020