The intention of this article is to help me figure out my own feelings and in the process, I hope it might help you too if you’re also feeling like you’re not quite ready for something, you don’t know where to start, or you just feel like there’s so much to do.
At the start of this month I started drafting out ideas for creating my first online yoga course (more to come on this), and as well as feeling really excited, I also had a feeling of not quite being ready too.
I remember feeling a bit like this after completing my first yoga teacher training, despite having practised yoga for years. For ages I didn’t dare teach any more than a few people a week until I went to India for three months to do an additional qualification, despite having already gone to India multiple times over the last decade to learn and practise yoga.
Where does this feeling of not being quite ready come from?
When I question myself about this, I think the feeling comes from needing to be told I’m allowed to do something or be validated by something outside of myself in order to feel I can do it. I remember the first ever person I taught yoga to — a couple who had originally approached me, yet it took a whole year and another three month training in India to feel like I was ready.
In a lot of life as we’re growing up, many of us feel like we need some kind of external validation to do something. I’ve no idea where it comes from. Maybe it was a kind of conditioning at school where all your work was graded. Or years of employment conditioned me to feel like I had to wait for someone else to give me an opportunity rather than create opportunities for myself.
Acknowledge your fear of the unknown
Perhaps it’s also just human nature to feel a bit cautious of the unknown. As I plan out my course and work daily on it, I have no idea how it will all turn out. But, I’m really enjoying making it and genuinely think people will benefit from it so my intention is in the right place.
It’s funny where the mind will sometimes wander to when I think about doing something new or unknown. Like many of us, one of my biggest weaknesses is caring too much about what people think or worrying about people not liking me.
One of the things I’ve observed as I write the content for my course is this fear bubbling up of people criticising me. I wonder if I had insecurities in other areas, it would be these fears that would bubble to the surface.
Focus on the intention
As I make the course, I’m focusing on making it the best I possibly can so it provides a lot of value for those who choose to do it. If I put this first, because I genuinely believe in what my course is about, then I should be able to handle criticism or use it constructively if I get it.
As I reflect on this one, it’s important to me, because I like to find meaning in a lot of the things I do — even if it’s personal meaning. An intention could be anything though — from a desire to enjoy the learning process as much as you like to trying to help as many people as you can with whatever idea or solution you have to a problem.
Take small steps every day
I’ve been working on this course daily since the start of April which is partly why I haven’t published any new posts on my blog for a while. I have not abandoned Thought Brick — I’m just trying to not do too many things all at once. I’ve also signed up to do a new course in the History of Yoga too!
Because I recently had a baby, I’ve been working in one to two hour blocks every day when my baby sleeps which is really productive. Rather than doing whole marathon sessions and rush what I’m doing, this works so much better.
I have an outline and an overall structure for what I’m doing and rather than overwhelm myself with everything I need to do to get it finished, I’m just breaking it down into small steps, even if some days I only manage to write 500 words.
Rather than feeling overwhelmed or not ready, I can ask myself am I ready to write one page of content for this section of module one? It suddenly all feels more doable and less a lot less overwhelming.
Create a plan and schedule
Whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed or unready it’s often because underneath there’s a lack of structure or clear organisation for how I’m going to do things. Now I’ve created more of a plan, I feel so much clearer about everything.
In the past I used to think this side of things was really boring, but having a at least a rough outline, framework or schedule to work with is like creating the foundations for everything you’re going to do on top, otherwise everything can become a bit wishy washy and all over the place, which ends up manifesting as feeling like there’s so much to do and you just don’t know where to start or what comes next.
Realise procrastination for what it is!
I’m going to finish by mentioning procrastination, because I did actually sit down to work on my course, but instead found myself writing this blog post, justifying it because I hadn’t written anything new for a while! Is it procrastination?
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A while back I bought the book Big Ideas for Curious Minds by the School of Life to read to my baby, but it ended up being more beneficial for me. It’s full of short philosophy essays whilst also introducing you to important philosophers and teachings throughout history.
One of the lessons is called Why we procrastinate? The teachings come from Hypatia of Alexandria. I talked briefly about fear at the top, and in this section of the book, it says, “The main thing that makes you procrastinate is fear.” It goes onto say that it’s a fear of not doing as well as you want to, or of getting something wrong. So, rather than procrastinators being lazy, they’re just perfectionists.
There’s a solution in the essay too. “Instead, you have to convince yourself that things are worth doing even if they are a bit wrong.” The lesson kind of relates back to what I mentioned earlier, about focusing on intention, which is really about having a good enough reason to do something. The lesson ends by saying “You will finally get down to work when the fear of maybe not doing something quite as well as you’d like is wiped out by the greater and more serious fear of not doing anything at all.”
And on that note, it’s time for me to get back to my course, stop taking things so seriously and just enjoy, have fun with it and love the process. Yes!
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